Journal of Uludağ University Medical Faculty

General Information
The Journal of Uludağ University Medical Faculty is the scientific publication organ of the Faculty of Medicine at Bursa Uludağ University, Bursa, Türkiye. The Journal of Uludağ University Medical Faculty is a national-international, double-blind peer-reviewed, open-access, and online publication that aims to evaluate and publish original articles, case reports, and reviews containing the results of research conducted in the fields of basic and clinical sciences as quickly as possible.
The journal publishes original research, reviews, case reports, technical notes, and letters to the editor in the fields of basic and clinical medical sciences that have not been published elsewhere or submitted for publication elsewhere.
Articles deemed appropriate by the Editor and the Editorial Board are sent to at least two advisory board members or scientific advisors (referees) who are not on the board but are capable of evaluating the article. The evaluation conducted by the scientific advisors is carried out based on the double-blind review principles. After the recommendations of the scientific advisors, the article is re-evaluated by the editorial board, and the final decision is made, with the approved articles being published. The Publication Committee of the Faculty of Medicine at Uludağ University adheres to the criteria of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME), and the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). The scientific and legal responsibilities of the article belong to the author.

Publication Frequency
The journal is published every four months (April, August, December). Three issues make up one volume.

Publication Language
The journal's publication language is English.
Starting from 2025, the journal's publication language has been English, and all articles have begun to be accepted in English.

GENERAL INFORMATION
The Journal of Uludağ University Medical Faculty publishes original research, reviews, case reports, and letters to the editor in the fields of basic and clinical medical sciences that have not been published or submitted for publication in any other national/international journal. Articles are evaluated by the Editorial Board and the Advisory Board members, and those deemed suitable for publication are published. The journal's publication language is English.
For experimental and clinical research, there must be a letter of approval obtained from the relevant Ethics Committee of the institution where the study was conducted, and this approval must be mentioned in the article. In cases deemed necessary by the editorial board or advisory board members, a copy of the ethics committee approval will be requested from the author. Articles reporting the results of experimental research conducted with humans should state that the study protocol has received approval from the institutional review board and that the participants have given informed consent. The Copyright Form, signed by all authors, stating that the article has not been published or is not under review in any other journal, should be downloaded from the manuscript tracking system, filled out, scanned, and uploaded in PDF format to the system along with the article. All responsibilities for the articles to be published in the journal belong to the authors.
Authors are required to disclose any conflicts of interest that may have influenced the preparation and writing of their research or articles. Conflicts of interest may include both financial and non-financial relationships. Other relationships that may be relevant to the topic should be disclosed to the Editor-in-Chief in the cover letter at the time of submission.
The articles submitted to the journal are first reviewed by the Editorial Board in terms of the journal's standards. Articles that do not conform to the journal's required format are returned to the author without further review. Therefore, to avoid unnecessary loss of time and effort, authors must carefully review the journal's guidelines.
Articles deemed compliant with the journal's rules are sent by the Editor and the Editorial Board to at least two members of the advisory board related to the subject or to scientific advisors (referees) who are not on the board but are capable of evaluating the article, and their opinions on the suitability for publication are obtained. The evaluation conducted by the scientific advisors is carried out based on the double-blind review principles. After the recommendations of the scientific advisors, the article is re-evaluated by the editorial board, and the final decision is made, with the approved articles being published.
Editors and Advisory Boards have the authority to make corrections, request changes in format, and make reductions by informing the authors during the correction, control, and typesetting stages of the articles. The deadline for the changes and corrections requested from the authors is 21 days, and the articles in question are not included in the publication schedule until the corrections are made.

ARTICLE SUBMISSION
Articles should be submitted online via https://dergipark.org.tr/uutfd and by following the provided instructions. If you have not logged into the system before, you must create a membership during the new member login and then log into the system. It is also necessary to submit the other forms that are mandatory to be sent in the system along with the article files. Mandatory forms and file types that must be downloaded from the system, filled out, and re-uploaded to the system: 1. Cover Letter (pdf), 2. Title Page (word), 3. Copyright Form (pdf), 4. Author Contribution Form (word).
All articles must conform to the language and writing style of the Journal of Uludağ University Medical Faculty. This includes submitting the article in correct medical English and presenting any figures and tables in the specified formats. The journal's publication language is English, and American English should be used.

Conflicts of Interest
Authors are required to disclose any conflicts of interest that may have influenced their research or the preparation and writing of their articles. There may be a conflict of interest when the authors (or their employers, sponsors, or family/friends) have a financial, commercial, legal, or professional connection with other organizations or individuals that could influence the research or the interpretation of the results. Therefore, authors should declare all conflicts of interest on the title pages. If there are no conflicts of interest, the authors should also declare this in their articles using the following standard statement:
"The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest to disclose."
For more information on publication ethics policies and conflicts of interest, please refer to the "Research and Publication Ethics" section.

Funding
Authors are required to disclose all funding and financial support received during the development of the work. Authors must indicate this on the title page using the following standard statement:
The authors declare that the study did not receive any funding.
The authors declare that the study was supported/funded by [for example, the ..... Institute], grant number: [xyz-12345].

Authorship
All authors must have directly contributed to the work described in the article. Researchers or other individuals who provided assistance or advice, or companies that donated materials, can be acknowledged in the Acknowledgments section following the main text. There should be no more than six authors for case reports.
The journal's definition of authorship is based on the recommendations of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). ICMJE recommends that authorship be based on the following 4 criteria:
1. Significant contributions to the concept or design of the study, or to the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the study; and
2. Preparing a draft of the work or critically reviewing significant intellectual content; and
3. The final approval of the version to be published; and
4. Accepting responsibility for all aspects of the work to ensure that any questions regarding the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are properly investigated and resolved.
Those who meet all four criteria are defined as authors. The responsibilities of the authors should be specified in the study. The 'Authorship Contribution Form' explaining the authors' contributions to the study should be downloaded from the manuscript tracking system and filled out, and the 'Authorship Contribution Form' (in Word format) should be uploaded to the system when the manuscript is submitted.
In the case of an article being written by a large group or consortium, all members must meet all four authorship criteria. The corresponding author(s) should specify the group name and group members in accordance with the confidentiality agreement.
Those who do not meet all the criteria mentioned above are not considered authors, but those who meet at least one of the criteria can be recognized as non-author contributors, and their contributions can be mentioned in the 'Acknowledgments' section. For more information on non-author contributions, you can visit https://www.icmje.org.

Corresponding Author
The corresponding author is the designated author who handles all correspondence with the journal on behalf of the authors from the submission of the article to the publication process. Corresponding author is responsible for complying with the journal's administrative requirements, providing necessary information and documents including authorship details, contact information, ethics committee approval, registration documents, and signing and obtaining signatures on publication agreements. The person who is the corresponding author in the manuscript tracking system (DergiPark) must also be the corresponding author in the published version of the article.

Permission
In articles submitted to the Journal of Uludağ University Medical Faculty, permission must be obtained from the copyright holder(s) for all previously published figures, tables, and text passages. Authors are required to cover all expenses related to obtaining this permission. Permission must be obtained for any material for which the authors do not hold full copyright. Any material such as clinical images or charts, photographs, graphics, or device images that may have been obtained from manufacturers cannot be published without such permission.

Cover Letter
Regardless of the type of article, a cover letter is required for all submissions. The cover letter is important as it helps the Editor's preliminary assessment. The Cover Letter must be uploaded by the Corresponding Author to the online submission system using the relevant link. In Cover Letter, it is necessary to state why the article is suitable for publication in the Journal of Uludağ University Medical Faculty. In the Cover Letter, statements should be provided confirming that the article has not been previously published, has not been evaluated by another journal, all authors approve the submission of this version of the manuscript, and that they assume full responsibility for the manuscript. In articles submitted to the journal, artificial intelligence (AI) can only be used for grammar and spelling checks and/or plagiarism assessment, and this usage must be specified in the Cover Letter.
These statements should be downloaded from the system and uploaded in Word format using the 'Cover Letter' Form that will be filled out.

Title page
In addition to the cover letter, the "Title Page" Form, which will be downloaded from the system and filled out, should be uploaded to the system in Word format.
The Title Page should include the article title, short title, author names, ORCID information of authors, authors' institutional affiliations, and the corresponding author's contact information. Author affiliation information should be clearly written in the final form of the article as desired for publication (university/hospital, faculty, department/clinic, city, country).
If the work has been presented at meetings before and/or published as an abstract or preprint, it must be indicated on the 'Title Page' and detailed on the title page.

Use of Artificial Intelligence
The Journal of Uludağ University Medical Faculty adheres to the current ICMJE and COPE guidelines and accepts the guidance of the Turkish Higher Education Council in the use of artificial intelligence (AI)-supported technology. In the articles submitted to the journal, artificial intelligence (AI) can only be used for grammar and spelling checks and/or plagiarism assessment.
Authors must disclose whether they used AI-supported technologies (Large Language Models [LLMs], chatbots [e.g., ChatGPT]) for language and spelling checks and/or plagiarism assessment in any part of the submitted work during the application process. The explanation of AI usage should include the name and manufacturer of the AI tool, the date(s) of use, and how it was used in relation to the article. Authors using these tools should explain how and where they used them and to what extent.
AI-supported tools cannot be listed as an author because they cannot be responsible for the accuracy, integrity, and originality of the work, nor can they identify the presence of conflicts of interest, and these responsibilities are necessary for authorship (see above, Authorship Criteria). Similarly, AI should not be listed as an author.
Authors should understand how any AI-supported technology works and its potential risks before using it. Authors should carefully review and edit any AI output. Artificial intelligence can use a wide variety of data as input and produce outputs that may be difficult to trace back to their original source. Merely declaring the use of AI is not sufficient to avoid legal or ethical violations, including plagiarism. Authors are responsible for all aspects of any material that involves the use of AI-supported technologies.
The Journal of Uludağ University Medical Faculty conducts checks for plagiarism and the use of artificial intelligence on all articles accepted for publication.

English Editing
The publication language of the Journal of Uludağ University Medical Faculty is English. Articles submitted in English must comply with grammar and spelling rules and meet the language standards for publication. Editors may request language corrections and revisions from authors. Submitted articles are evaluated by the journal's 'Language Editor' before acceptance, and if deemed necessary, they may make 'language corrections' or request language corrections and editing from the authors. Accepted articles can only be published after the language corrections and editorial requests have been met.

Manuscript Preparation
The submitted articles should be created using Microsoft Word, written in Times New Roman font, 12-point size, and 1.5 line spacing. It should be uploaded to the system as a Word file.
A 2.5 cm margin should be left on both sides of the page, and the pages should be numbered sequentially starting from the title page. The page number should be written in the bottom right corner of each page.

MAIN TEXT
The main text should not contain any information about the authors and/or the institutions they work for.
The main text should include, in order, an English and Turkish title, an English and Turkish abstract, English and Turkish keywords, an introduction, materials and methods, findings, discussion and conclusion, references, tables, figures, and appendices (if any).
Title
The title of the study should clearly and accurately reflect the study. Titles should not exceed two lines and should be written with the first letter of each word capitalized. Title should not contain abbreviations or acronyms.
Abstract
The abstract should be written as a single text without being divided into sections (unstructured). The English and Turkish abstracts should not exceed 250 words, and the English title and abstract should be equivalent to the Turkish title and abstract. The abstract should briefly state the purpose, scope, and methods of the study, and the main findings should be detailed enough to support the conclusion reached. The first sentence should cover the purpose of the study, and the last sentence should encompass the result of the study. The new and important aspects of the study or observations should be emphasized. Abstracts should not contain non-standard abbreviations.
Keywords
Keywords increase the discoverability of articles. Under the Turkish and English abstract, according to the Index Medicus Medical Subject Headings (MESH) (https://meshb.nlm.nih.gov), there should be no fewer than three and no more than six keywords.
If there are no terms that match the newly entered terms in the Index Medicus medical subject headings, existing terms can be used.

ORIGINAL ARTICLE
In the original article, the main text should include the introduction, materials and methods, findings, discussion and conclusion, acknowledgments (optional), references, table titles and tables, figures and figure legends. Abbreviations should be defined in the Abstract, main text, figures, and tables after their first use. Only widely accepted abbreviations should be used. Drug and chemical names should be specified using generic or standard chemical nomenclature. Measurement units should be in accordance with the International System (SI); however, clinical data may be presented in traditional units when deemed more appropriate.
Introduction: The purpose of the article, the rationale for the study or observation should be summarized, and the data or results of the study should not be explained.
Materials and Methods: It should be stated that the experimental and clinical studies included in the article were approved by the relevant ethics committee. Established methods should be referenced, and new methods should be briefly explained.
Biostatistical Analysis: In the last paragraph of the Materials and Methods section, the statistical analyses used should be specified. The p-values should be explicitly stated. The article is evaluated by the Biostatistics Editor before being sent to scientific advisors, and corrections are requested from the author when necessary.
Findings: The data obtained from the study should be written comprehensively and clearly. The statistical results of the data included in the findings should contain information on the mean, standard error, p-value, and F-value. Tables and figures (drawings, graphs, and photographs) should be numbered in the order they appear in the text as explained below, and references to tables and/or figures should be made in the relevant sections of the findings.
Discussion and Conclusion: The findings obtained from the study should be discussed by comparing them with the literature, the limitations of the study should be stated, and the contribution of the study to the literature should be summarized in the conclusion. Both the discussion and conclusion should be included under this heading, and the conclusion section should be provided in the last paragraph of this heading.

Acknowledgements (Optional): The names of individuals who have made partial contributions to the work, other than the authors, can be written in this section. Additionally, information about the project and source that supported the study can be entered in this section.

References: The sources used should be numbered in the order they appear in the text, provided as superscripts in the text, and formatted according to the AMA (American Medical Association) style. The abbreviations used should conform to Index Medicus and Science Citation Index. Personal communications, unpublished articles in preparation, or other unpublished data should not be cited as sources. In articles with fewer than six authors, all authors' names should be listed. If there are six or more authors, the first three should be listed followed by "et al."
Examples:
Article:
White NP, Kim D, Fos K. Posterior fossa aneurysms. J Neurosurg. 1990;72(1):345-349.
Book:
Norman IJ, Redfern SJ, (eds). Mental health care for elderly people. 3rd edition. New York: Churchill Livingstone; 1996.

Book Chapter:
Jane JA, Persing JA. Neurosurgical treatment of craniosynostosis. In: Cohen MM, Kim D (eds). Craniosynostosis: Diagnosis and management. 2nd edition. NewYork: Raven Press; 1986: 249-295.
Theses:
Kanpolat Y. Trigeminal Gangliona Deneysel Perkütan Giriş ve Radyofrekans Termik Lezyonun Histopatolojik Değerlendirilmesi (Doktara/Uzmanlık Tezi). Ankara Üniversitesi; 1978.
Extensive information on various other reference management software can be found on the "International Committee of Medical Journal Editors" website: www.icmje.org.
Unpublished observations and personal communications cannot be used as sources. Accepted, unpublished articles that have received a DOI can be included in the references with the word "in press" indicated.
In sources obtained from the internet, the full access address and access date must be included.
Tables: Tables should be placed after the "References" section in the main text file. Each table should be written on a separate page, along with its title and footnotes. Each table should contain an appropriate title that explains its content, and the title should be placed above the table. Tables should be numbered consecutively in the order they appear in the main text, and mentions to the tables in the text should always follow the consecutive numbering order. In the numbering of tables, Roman numerals should be used (Table I, Table II, III, IV…). If abbreviations are used in the table, they should be explained as footnotes below the table.
Figures: Within the scope of the journal, photographs, graphs, and/or illustrations are defined as "Figures." All figures must be placed after the "Tables" section in the main text file and should also be prepared according to the specified features and uploaded separately to the system. Each figure should be numbered consecutively in the main text according to the order in which they appear (Figure 1, Figure 2,…). Figure files must be in JPEG or TIFF format. Other formats are not accepted. In figures with multiple sections, each section should be indicated with lowercase letters (a, b, c, etc.). Figures containing multiple sections should be prepared as a single combined figure and uploaded to the manuscript submission system as a single file.
The titles and descriptions of all figures should be provided on a separate page after the "Figures" section in the full text file, and the figure files uploaded to the system should not contain titles and descriptions. If an abbreviation is used in the figure, the abbreviations should be explained as a footnote under the figure. If the figure is a quotation from another source, the source should be cited in the figure caption.
Figures containing photographs should be saved at a minimum resolution of 600x600 pixels and scaled to fit one or two columns in magazine size.
Graphics and illustrations should be prepared with a resolution of at least 300x300 pixels and scaled to fit one or two columns.

CASE REPORT
Cases that contribute to the literature and have publication value should be submitted. Title (in English and Turkish), abstract (in English and Turkish), keywords (in English and Turkish) (at least 3, at most 6), introduction, case report (patient presentation, laboratory or other findings, diagnosis and explanation of the outcome), discussion and conclusion (what is new in this case report, how it differs from previously published cases, and how it is related), references, table titles and tables, figures and figure titles sections should be included.
For all case reports submitted to the journal, informed consent must be obtained from the patient. This consent must be specified in the 'case report' section of the main text.
The number of authors for case reports is limited to six.
REVIEW
The title (in English and Turkish), abstract (in English and Turkish), keywords (in English and Turkish), and main text sections should be included.
The number of authors for compilations is limited to three.
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
The title (in English and Turkish), abstract (in English and Turkish), keywords (in English and Turkish), and main text sections should be included.
Article Submission Checklist:
Before submitting the articles, compliance with writing rules should be checked, and any deficiencies should be addressed using the checklist below.
1. It should be ensured that the journal's writing rules, copyright, and author responsibilities are seen, read, and understood.
2. It should be ensured that the article has not been published or submitted to another journal and is not under review elsewhere.
3. It should be ensured that the study complies with research ethics rules.
4. It should be ensured that all authors' names are written.
5. Mandatory forms (Cover Letter, Title Page, Copyright Form, and Author Contribution Form) should be downloaded from the system, filled out, and then re-uploaded to the system.
6. Main Text:
It should consist of the following sections:
- Article Title (English and Turkish)
-Summary (in English and Turkish)
-Keywords (English and Turkish)
-Introduction
-Materials and Methods
-Results
-Discussion and Conclusion
-References (Must comply with the journal's guidelines.)
-Acknowledgement
-Tables
-Figures and figure captions with subtitles

ETHICAL PRINCIPLES
The Journal of Uludağ University Medical Faculty adopts and adheres to the ethical principles, frameworks, and standards established by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).
The Journal of Uludağ University Medical Faculty requires the documentation of the Ethics Committee Decision in clinical studies involving humans, experimental studies using laboratory animals, and survey studies. These documents must also include a page with the signatures of the Committee Members (a cover letter alone is insufficient). In the article text, the Ethics Committee information (Committee name, decision date, decision number) should be included in the "Materials and Methods" section.
In case reports, an ethics committee decision is not required, but consent must be obtained from the cases included in the article, and this must be stated within the article.
Ethics committee approval is not required for reviews, but it is expected that the corresponding author uploads a signed statement indicating this to the system.
Article authors must adhere to universal publication ethics rules.

Ethical Responsibilities of Authors
Authors must state that their articles are their original work and that all data in the article are real and original. Authors are responsible for ensuring that the data presented in their articles is accurate and representative of the article. To ensure transparency, authors may be asked to submit their raw data or additional data along with the article. Authors are responsible for providing supplementary and auxiliary materials. The articles submitted to the journal must not have been published elsewhere or be under consideration for publication. However, authors can submit their articles to the Journal after receiving a rejection letter from another publisher. Theses and graduation theses that are not archived online are considered original and unpublished. However, authors who submit articles using the content and data of their theses should mention this in the Acknowledgments section.

Authors must comply with the authorship criteria listed in the "Authorship" section. The level of their contributions should be defined in the 'Authorship Contribution Form' section. Authors are responsible for retracting and correcting errors. Authors must disclose and declare any conflicts of interest to the Editors. If there is no conflict of interest, the authors should also declare this in their article. Authors should specify all sources used in the creation of the articles. Authors should cite relevant and verified literature to support their scientific work and should not use unrelated sources that could assist other research/journals.

The corresponding author is the main owner of the article, so they can withdraw their articles before entering the review process or when a revision is requested. Authors cannot make significant changes to the article or withdraw it without a serious reason after the paper has been accepted.

Authors are obliged to inform the journal editor or publisher of any errors or mistakes in a published, preprint, or review-stage article and to cooperate with the chief editor to correct or retract the article. Authors should avoid submitting a manuscript based on the same dataset, study, or experiment for publication. The journal reserves the right to withhold publication or reject articles identified as plagiarism, ethical violations, undisclosed prior publication, or conflicts of interest, even after an editorial acceptance decision.

All articles are examined for similarity or plagiarism. Articles submitted to the journal for evaluation are examined using the "Plagiarism Detection Program" (iThenticate), and articles with a similarity rate above 20% are returned to the authors.

Authors should maintain open and constructive communication with other editors and reviewers. (Inappropriate language or destructive behavior is unacceptable. The journal follows COPE guidelines when dealing with such situations.

Ethical Responsibilities of Referees
Reviewers must keep all information related to the articles confidential and treat it as privileged information. Evaluations should be conducted objectively without personal criticism of the author. The authors' self-identification should not influence their comments and decisions. Reviewers may identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors. Reviewers should not review articles that have conflicts of interest arising from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the articles.
Reviewers are obliged to complete the assigned tasks on time and to inform the journal in case of the need for an extension or withdrawal from the task.

The Ethical Responsibilities of Editors
Journal Editors (Chief Editor, Editor, or Editorial Board Members) have full responsibility and authority to reject/accept an article. Editors always consider the needs of authors and readers while striving to improve the publication. Editors take the necessary precautions to keep articles and editorial reports confidential. Articles, editorial reports, and obtained information are not shared or disclosed for any reason.
Editorial decisions in the journal are based solely on the significance, originality, clarity, and suitability of the articles for publication. Editors ensure that all research materials published in the Journal comply with internationally accepted ethical standards. Editors are obliged to take action and make all reasonable efforts to resolve the issue when they encounter any abuse, unethical behavior, or misconduct related to research and publication ethics, whether the article is published or unpublished.
In articles submitted by editors or members of the editorial board of the journal, the process is conducted in such a way that the editor or board member who is the author of the article does not participate in the evaluation and decision stages.
Editors, editorial staff, authors, reviewers, and committee members conduct the evaluation process in a manner that does not allow any conflicts of interest.
Editors are responsible for completing assigned tasks on time, facilitating the review process, remaining impartial, and ensuring that the review process progresses consistently and fairly.

PUBLISHING POLICY
The Journal of Uludağ University Medical Faculty is an open-access journal that publishes for scientific purposes and does not request any fees at any stage of the process. Articles submitted for evaluation to the journal are primarily subjected to a format review, and a similarity check is conducted at this stage. Subsequently, a priority assessment for publication in the journal is conducted by the chief editor, editor, and/or the relevant section editor. Due to the large number of articles submitted to our journal, in this evaluation, articles determined not to have priority are not considered for review and are returned to the author. A Section Editor from the Editorial Board is assigned to the articles that are accepted for review. The section editor obtains opinions from at least 2 scientific advisors and informs the editor of the decision. In the case of equal opinions from scientific advisors (1 rejection, 1 acceptance/revision), the article may be sent to a third reviewer by the section editor, or the section editor may provide her/his opinion based on her/his own evaluation. The final decision is made by the Chief Editor and/or the Editor and communicated to the author.
The review period in our journal is an average of 60 days. However, for various reasons, this period can vary between 15 days and 120 days.

For articles submitted to and published in the Journal of Uludağ University Faculty Medicine, which is open access, no fees are charged at the manuscript submission stage, during the processing period, or after the manuscript is accepted. No fees are charged to the author and/or their institution under any circumstances.