About

Content we consider

Aims and scope

BMC Cancer is an open access, peer-reviewed journal that considers articles on all aspects of cancer research, including the pathophysiology, prevention, diagnosis and treatment of cancers. The journal welcomes submissions concerning molecular and cellular biology, genetics, epidemiology, and clinical trials.

The journal welcomes manuscripts in the following broad areas of research:

Cell and molecular biology including all aspects of tumor biology from a molecular and cellular point of view. Topics of interest include animal models, hypoxia, angiogenesis, metastasis, cellular signaling, cancer stem cells, DNA damage and repair, cell cycle and apoptosis.
Biomarker studies we will publish studies of diagnostic and prognostic markers which may ultimately be applicable in a clinical setting. Submissions need to be REMARK compliant as established in NCI-EORTC's "Reporting Recommendations for Tumor Marker Prognostic Studies" (J Clin Oncol 23:9067, 2005) and "Reporting Recommendations for Tumor Marker Prognostic Studies (REMARK): An Abridged Explanation and Elaboration" (J Natl Cancer Inst . 2018 Aug 1;110(8):803-811.). They should report biomarkers that have a clear biologic relevance to a particular tumor type and be validated in at least one independent validation cohort and with biological validation in vitro or in vivo. Manuscripts consisting solely of bioinformatics, computational analysis, or predictions of public databases which are not accompanied by validation will not be considered at BMC Cancer.
Cancer epidemiology related cancer research including all aspects of cancer epidemiology including risk factors for disease initiation and development, social determinants, environmental, behavioural, and occupational correlates.
Experimental therapeutics and drug development including all aspects of preclinical investigations on therapeutic agents. It welcomes submissions concerning anti-cancer drug discovery and development, and targeted therapies.
Genetics, genomics and epigenetics including all aspects of genome-scale analysis, functional genomics, genetic association studies, pharmacogenomics and epigenetics in relation to cancer biology, diagnosis and therapy.
Tumour immunology including on all aspects of infectious agents associated with cancer and tumor immunology. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, tumor immunity, immunotherapy, cancer vaccines, viral carcinogenesis and virus-host interactions.
Therapy studies with focus on clinical research that impacts on the treatment of cancer using systemic chemotherapy, immunotherappy, targeted therapy, and radiation. We further welcome submissions on research looking at therapy resistance mechanisms.
Surgical oncology with focus on clinical research that impacts on the diagnosis and treatment of cancer using surgery, diagnostic imaging, interventional therapeutics, and surgical pathology.
Systems biology, post-genomic analysis and emerging technologies including all all aspects of the function of biological systems at the molecular and cellular level, in particular those addressing network modeling, quantitative analyses and the integration of different levels of information. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, deep sequencing-based technologies, computational biology and machine learning in relation to cancer biology.

Last updated: November 2021

BMC Cancer does not make editorial decisions on the basis of the interest of a study or its likely impact. Studies must be scientifically valid; for research articles this includes a scientifically sound research question, the use of suitable methods and analysis, and following community-agreed standards relevant to the research field.

Open access

All articles published by BMC Cancer are made freely and permanently accessible online immediately upon publication, without subscription charges or registration barriers. Further information about open access can be found here.

As authors of articles published in BMC Cancer you are the copyright holders of your article and have granted to any third party, in advance and in perpetuity, the right to use, reproduce or disseminate your article according to the licence terms.

For those of you who are US government employees or are prevented from being copyright holders for similar reasons, BMC can accommodate non-standard copyright lines. Please contact us if further information is needed.

Article processing charges (APC)

Authors who publish open access in BMC Cancer are required to pay an article processing charge (APC). The APC price will be determined from the date on which the article is accepted for publication.

The current APC, subject to VAT or local taxes where applicable, is: £2390.00/$3190.00/€2790.00*

*This journal is part of Springer Nature’s country-tiered APC pricing pilot. Find out more about the APC applicable to your country.

Visit our open access support portal and our Journal Pricing FAQs for further information.

Open access funding

Visit Springer Nature’s open access funding & support services for information about research funders and institutions that provide funding for APCs.

Springer Nature offers agreements that enable institutions to cover open access publishing costs. Learn more about our open access agreements to check your eligibility and discover whether this journal is included.

Requests for APC waivers and discounts from authors will be considered on a case-by-case basis, and may be granted in cases of financial need (see our open access policies for journals for more information). All applications for discretionary APC waivers and discounts should be made at the point of manuscript submission; requests made during the review process or after acceptance are unable to be considered.

Indexing services

All articles published in BMC Cancer are included in:

CABI
CAS
Citebase
Current contents
DOAJ
Embase
Global Health
MEDLINE
OAIster
PubMed
PubMed Central
Science Citation Index Expanded
SCImago
Scopus
SOCOLAR
Zetoc

The full text of all articles is deposited in digital archives around the world to guarantee long-term digital preservation. You can also access all articles published by BioMed Central on SpringerLink.

Peer-review policy

Peer-review is the system used to assess the quality of a manuscript before it is published. Independent researchers in the relevant research area assess submitted manuscripts for originality, validity and significance to help editors determine whether the manuscript should be published in their journal. You can read more about the peer-review process here.

In cases where the journal is unable to find sufficient peer reviewers, the services of a publishing partner, American Journal Experts (AJE), may be used to identify suitable reviewers and provide reports to avoid further delays for authors. Reviewers recruited by AJE are paid a small honorarium for completing the review within a specified timeframe. Honoraria are paid regardless of the reviewer recommendation.

In cases where reports have been obtained by AJE, the peer review reports will be unsigned unless the reviewer opts in to sign the report.

BMC Cancer operates a transparent peer-review system, where, if the article is published, the reviewer reports are published online alongside the article under a Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 but the reviewer is not named.

The benefit of transparent peer review is that it increases transparency. In addition, published reports can serve an educational purpose in helping facilitate training and research into peer review.

Manuscripts submitted to BMC Cancer are assessed by our Editors and/or peer reviewers. Editor(s) are expected to obtain a minimum of two peer reviewers for manuscripts reporting primary research or secondary analysis of primary research. It is recognized that in some exceptional circumstances, particularly in niche and emerging fields, it may not be possible to obtain two independent peer reviewers. In such cases, Editor(s) may wish to make a decision to publish based on one peer review report. When making a decision based on one report, Editor(s) are expected to only do so if the peer review report meets the standards set out in the Springer Nature Code of Conduct (section Peer-Review). Overall editorial responsibility for the journal is with the Editor, with Editorial Board Members acting as handling editors.

BMC Cancer is part of the BMC series which publishes subject-specific journals focused on the needs of individual research communities across all areas of biology and medicine. We do not make editorial decisions on the basis of the interest of a study or its likely impact. Studies must be scientifically valid; for research articles this includes a scientifically sound research question, the use of suitable methods and analysis, and following community-agreed standards relevant to the research field.

Specific criteria for other article types can be found in the submission guidelines.

BMC series - open, inclusive and trusted.

Collections and Special issues

All articles submitted to Collections and Special issues are peer reviewed in line with the journal’s standard peer review policy and are subject to all of the journal’s standard editorial and publishing policies. This includes the journal’s policy on competing interests. The Editors declare no competing interests with the submissions which they have handled through the peer review process. The peer review of any submissions for which the Editors have competing interests is handled by another Editor who has no competing interests.

Editorial policies

All manuscripts submitted to BMC Cancer should adhere to BioMed Central's editorial policies.

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Appeals and complaints

Authors who wish to appeal a rejection or make a complaint should follow the procedure outlined in the BMC Editorial Policies.

Citing articles in BMC Cancer

Articles in BMC Cancer should be cited in the same way as articles in a traditional journal. Because articles are not printed, they do not have page numbers; instead, they are given a unique article number.

Article citations follow this format:

Authors: Title. BMC Cancer [year], [volume number]:[article number].

e.g. Roberts LD, Hassall DG, Winegar DA, Haselden JN, Nicholls AW, Griffin JL: Increased hepatic oxidative metabolism distinguishes the action of Peroxisome Proliferator-Activated Receptor delta from Peroxisome Proliferator-Activated Receptor gamma in the Ob/Ob mouse. BMC Cancer 2009, 1:115.

refers to article 115 from Volume 1 of the journal.

Benefits of publishing with BMC

High visibility

BMC Cancer's open access policy allows maximum visibility of articles published in the journal as they are available to a wide, global audience.

Speed of publication

BMC Cancer offers a fast publication schedule whilst maintaining rigorous peer review; all articles must be submitted online, and peer review is managed fully electronically (articles are distributed in PDF form, which is automatically generated from the submitted files). Articles will be published with their final citation after acceptance, in both fully browsable web form, and as a formatted PDF.

Flexibility

Online publication in BMC Cancer gives you the opportunity to publish large datasets, large numbers of color illustrations and moving pictures, to display data in a form that can be read directly by other software packages so as to allow readers to manipulate the data for themselves, and to create all relevant links (for example, to PubMed, to sequence and other databases, and to other articles).

Promotion and press coverage

Articles published in BMC Cancer are included in article alerts and regular email updates. Some may be highlighted on BMC Cancer’s pages and on the BMC homepage.

In addition, articles published in BMC Cancer may be promoted by press releases to the general or scientific press. These activities increase the exposure and number of accesses for articles published in BMC Cancer. A list of articles recently press-released by journals published by BMC is available here.

Copyright

As an author of an article published in Cancer & Metabolism you retain the copyright of your article and you are free to reproduce and disseminate your work. For further information, see our guide to licensing, copyright and author rights.

For further information about the advantages of publishing in a journal from BMC, please click here.