Shipping Preparation Checklist

As part of the submission process, authors are required to verify that their submission meets all of the elements shown below.

Submissions that do not comply with these guidelines will be returned to the authors.

• The submission has not been previously published or submitted for consideration by any other journal (or an explanation has been provided in the Comments to the Editor).
• The submission file is in OpenOffice, Microsoft Word, RTF or WordPerfect format.
• Wherever possible, URLs are provided for references.
• The text has single spacing; 12 point font size; italics are used instead of underlining (except in URLs); and all illustrations, figures, and tables are placed in the appropriate places in the text, rather than at the end.
• The text adheres to the stylistic and bibliographic requirements outlined in the Author Guidelines, which appear in About the Journal.
• Have checklists been followed to enrich the presentation?
• CARE: Clinical cases; STROBE: Observational Studies. CONSORT: Experimental Clinical Studies. PRISMA: Systematic Reviews. STARD: diagnostic test