Submitting to or engaging with a journal published by the Baishideng Publishing Group (BPG)—whether as an author, reviewer, or editorial staff member—means entrusting us with your work. As such, we place scientific rigor and ethical integrity at the core of everything we do. All BPG journals uphold editorial, academic, and professional independence as a fundamental principle. The Editor-in-Chief of each BPG journal has overall responsibility for academic quality control and editorial oversight, may assign manuscripts to an Associate Editor or Editorial Board Member for initial academic assessment when appropriate, and makes or confirms the final academic decision on manuscript acceptance. We are committed to ensuring that our management team, editorial staff, authors, and reviewers adhere to the guiding documents established by our Editorial Office, which are based on the standards of the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME) and the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)—including the Guidelines for Authors, the Peer-Review Process, the Editorial Process, and Publication Ethics. All submitted manuscripts must comply with scientific research standards and ethical requirements. This mandatory policy encompasses data authenticity, absence of plagiarism, compliance with ethical review, and adherence to academic integrity and rigorous manuscript preparation standards. All manuscripts submitted to journals published by BPG, whether invited or unsolicited, undergo a structured editorial process that mainly includes: Manuscript Submission; Initial Checks; Initial Academic Review; Peer Review; First Editorial Decision; Author Revision; Re-review and Editorial Processing of the Revised Manuscript; Final Academic Decision; Final Publication Verification; Articles in Press and DOI Registration; PDF Production and Author Proofing; Final Online Publication; Post-Publication Disclosure and Evaluation.

The corresponding author registers an account and submits the manuscript, ethics documents, and other relevant documents through the F6Publishing system.

Upon submission, an Editor conducts initial checks to verify the following: (1) Whether the manuscript's topic falls within the scope of the journal; (2) Whether the authors' institutional affiliations and departments match the research topic; (3) For manuscripts involving animal experiments or human studies, whether the authors have provided valid ethical approval documentation; (4) For manuscripts using data from human participants, whether complete and properly executed informed consent forms have been provided; (5) For manuscripts requiring substantial English-language improvement, whether the authors have provided appropriate evidence of professional language editing or a statement confirming that the manuscript has been carefully reviewed and approved by all authors; (6) For all manuscripts, whether it is complete, including main text, figures, tables, and references; (7) Whether the cover letter appropriately aligns with both the journal's scope and the manuscript's content; (8) Conducts iThenticate similarity checking to determine whether the manuscript involves overlapping publication, text recycling, or plagiarism; (9) Conducts artificial intelligence (AI)-writing screening as an editorial reference to assess whether the authors’ AI contribution statement is complete, transparent, and consistent with the manuscript content. Authors must disclose whether AI tools were used for language editing, translation, manuscript organization, literature organization, reference formatting, figure/table generation, data analysis, statistical analysis, or drafting of any manuscript section. AI detection results are used only as an editorial screening reference and are not used as the sole basis for editorial decisions; and (10) Whether there is any evidence of academic misconduct, such as paper mill involvement, batch submissions, ghostwriting, or plagiarism. If any non-compliance with journal requirements is identified during the initial checks process, the manuscript will be either returned to the authors for revision before resubmission or rejected outright. If academic misconduct is suspected or identified, the manuscript will be rejected or subjected to further investigation in accordance with BPG’s publication ethics policies. In cases where academic misconduct is confirmed, the manuscript will be immediately rejected, and the authors may be subject to submission restrictions or other appropriate editorial actions.

If a manuscript passes the Initial Checks, it proceeds to initial academic review under the overall supervision of the Editor-in-Chief. When appropriate, the Editor-in-Chief may assign the manuscript to an Associate Editor or Editorial Board Member for initial academic assessment according to the manuscript’s subject area and specialty. The assigned Associate Editor or Editorial Board Member conducts a preliminary assessment of the manuscript’s academic quality and provides initial academic review comments. The Editor-in-Chief makes or confirms the decision on whether the manuscript is qualified for external peer review. This evaluation process encompasses the following: (1) Whether the Abstract contains the essential components of each manuscript section (IMRaD); (2) Whether the experimental data presented in the manuscript are reliable and scientifically sound; (3) Whether the selection and design of figures and tables follow the principles of necessity and clarity; (4) Whether there is any duplication between different sections of the manuscript or between the main text and the content presented in the figures and tables; (5) Whether the figures and tables are numbered consecutively in the order of their appearance in the text; (6) Whether the references are closely related to the subject matter of the text; and (7) Whether the manuscript meets the rigorous criteria to proceed to external peer review. Manuscripts that pass the Initial Academic Review proceed to the external peer review step; those that do not pass are rejected.

If a manuscript passes the Initial Academic Review, the Editor invites at least two external peer reviewers with expertise in the manuscript's research topic and specialized field to conduct a single-blind peer review. External peer reviewers decide whether to accept or decline the invitation to review the manuscript within 36 hours. If they accept the invitation to review, the review should be performed according to the Guidelines for Manuscript Review within 14 days normally, though they may opt for an extension of 17 or 21 days if needed.

5.1 Editor Evaluation of Peer Review Reports. Following the receipt of two peer review reports, the Editor is responsible for verifying the information of the peer reviewers and the content of the reports. This includes confirming whether any peer reviewers have a conflict of interest with the author(s), such as being affiliated with the same institution, and checking the peer review reports for relevance to the manuscript and for any indications of AI-generated content. When encountering conflicting reviewer reports, the Editor should first analyze the primary points of contention. If the conflict does not pertain to fundamental scientific quality, academic misconduct, or ethical issues, the Editor may select a third reviewer to provide an additional assessment.

Based on the initial academic review comments; the peer reviewers’ ratings of the manuscript’s scientific and language quality, novelty, creativity or innovation, and the scientific significance of its conclusions, as well as their recommended conclusion (i.e. acceptance, minor revision, major revision, or rejection); the AI detection report (AI detection results are used only as an editorial screening reference and are not used as the sole basis for editorial decisions) and iThenticate similarity report uploaded during initial checks, together with the authors’ responses to the AI contribution questions and their AI contribution statement submitted at the time of manuscript submission; the validity and authenticity of the ethical approval documentation provided by the author(s); and the completeness and conformity of the informed consent forms, the Editor writes the Editor’s comments, formulates a First Editorial Decision recommendation, and then submits the manuscript to the Responsible Scientific Editor for further processing.

5.2 Responsible Scientific Editor’s Verification of Peer Review Quality. First, the Responsible Scientific Editor verifies whether the peer review reports meet the Guidelines for Manuscript Review requirements, assessing their validity and determining their reference value for the decision-making process. If the quality of a peer review report does not meet the guidelines for manuscript review requirements, the review will be considered invalid, and the peer review report will be discarded. If the reports are deemed insufficient, the manuscript will be returned to the Editor to invite additional peer reviewers for further review. The Responsible Scientific Editor conducts verification of the following aspects of the peer review reports: (1) The reviewer's identity, by confirming their country, institution, academic degree, and professional title, as well as determining their affiliation status; (2) Any potential conflicts of interest, based on the reviewer's declaration in the report and by comparing the reviewer's institutional affiliation with that of the author(s); (3) The comprehensiveness of the review, by verifying whether the reviewer has thoroughly addressed the key content items of the manuscript, such as by positive answers to: Does the manuscript’s content fall within the scope of the journal? Is the content of the Introduction adequate? Is the content of the Materials and Methods comprehensive? Is the description of the experiments clear and complete? Are the experimental data of the Results true and reliable? Is the content of the Discussion reasonable? Is the Conclusion reasonable? Are all references necessary and reasonable? Are all references related to the topic of the manuscript? Is the manuscript’s text correct, concise, and clear? Will the manuscript’s content be of interest to readers? Are additional experiments needed for the study? Does the research scope comply with ethics?; (4) Whether the peer reviewer has recommended that the author cite articles by the reviewer themselves or their colleagues. In cases where there are essential articles that the authors need to cite, the reviewer should provide a meticulously reasoned explanation for his/her recommendation of the specific article so that the authors can decide independently whether or not to cite the recommended article; and (5) Whether the specific comments to authors prepared by the peer reviewer focus on the manuscript's scientific content, are in-depth and supported by reason, and are specific enough to provide the authors with important academic reference value in revising their manuscript?

5.3 First Editorial Decision: Revision Invitation or Rejection. Next, the Responsible Scientific Editor writes the Responsible Scientific Editor’s comments and makes the First Editorial Decision which may be a decision to invite revision or to reject the manuscript, based on the initial academic review comments, peer reviewers’ ratings of the manuscript’s scientific and language quality, novelty, creativity or innovation, and the scientific significance of its conclusions, along with their recommended conclusion (i.e. acceptance, minor revision, major revision, or rejection); the AI detection report and iThenticate similarity report uploaded during initial checks, together with the authors’ responses to the AI contribution questions and their AI contribution statement submitted at the time of submission; the First Editorial Decision recommendation by the Editor; and the verification results confirming the authenticity and validity of the ethics and relevant document(s).

5.4 Revision Invitation and Rejection Criteria. In general, if the manuscript receives two peer review reports with a scientific quality rating of Grade A (Excellent), Grade B (Very good), or Grade C (Good), and a language quality rating of Grade A (Excellent) or Grade B (Very good), and if the peer reviewers’ recommended conclusion is either acceptance or revision, and the ethics-related documents comply with academic rules and standards, the Responsible Scientific Editor may make the First Editorial Decision of inviting revision. If two or more reviewers recommend rejection, the Responsible Scientific Editor will proceed to reject the manuscript.

5.5 Handling of Conflicting Reviewer Reports. When encountering conflicting reviewer reports, the Responsible Scientific Editor will check the key points of contention. If the conflict does not pertain to fundamental scientific quality, academic misconduct, or ethical issues, the Responsible Scientific Editor will reference the third reviewer’s comments to make the decision.

For manuscripts receiving a First Editorial Decision of inviting revision, the Responsible Scientific Editor will notify the authors to revise their manuscript in accordance with the peer review reports, the initial academic review comments, the Editor’s comments, the Responsible Scientific Editor’s comments, and the Checklist for Authors to Revise a Manuscript. Authors are generally given 14 days to submit the revised manuscript. During the revision process, authors are required to provide a formal AI contribution statement, which is a transparent and complete disclosure regarding any use of AI tools in the preparation of the manuscript, and authors should highlight the changes made in a copy of the revised original manuscript to ensure that modifications can be readily identified, and provide point-by-point responses to all reviewers’ comments in a formal Response to Reviewers letter. Manuscripts that are returned without fully addressing the reviewers’ comments, or that cannot be revised within the deadline even after an extension, will be rejected. Additionally, a manuscript will be rejected if any of the following discrepancies are identified in the F6Publishing system and lacking a reasonable explanation: The authorship differs from the original author list, including changes in author order or the addition or removal of authors; the author affiliations or email addresses differ from those in the original submission; or the first author or corresponding author has been changed. Furthermore, if the Intelligent Manuscript Format Editor (IMFE)—an editing tool developed by BPG—identifies any of the following issues in the revised manuscript, the manuscript will also be rejected: References that are unrelated to the manuscript’s subject matter; excessive self-citations; or inclusion of forced citations recommended by peer reviewers.

For manuscripts revised by the authors, the Editor first conducts an initial review using the IMFE. This review includes the following activities: (1) Verifying that the authors have provided authentic and valid ethics-related documents corresponding to the manuscript type; (2) For manuscripts requiring substantial English-language improvement, whether the authors have provided appropriate evidence of professional language editing or a statement confirming that the manuscript has been carefully reviewed and approved by all authors; (3) Ensuring that all authors have signed the Copyright License Agreement; (4) Checking the completeness of the full manuscript, figures, tables, supplementary materials, and image files, and confirming that all files meet editorial and production standards; (5) Confirming that the authors have revised the manuscript in accordance with the peer reviewers’ comments, the initial academic review comments, the Editor’s comments, the Responsible Scientific Editor’s comments, and the Checklist for Authors to Revise a Manuscript; (6) Verifying the accuracy and appropriateness of reference citations, including whether the citation order is correct and whether the references are relevant to the manuscript content; and (7) Checking authors’ AI contribution statement. If the manuscript passes the Editor’s review, it may be sent back to the original peer reviewers, when necessary, for further assessment and recommendation. If the original peer reviewers recommend further revision, the Editor will communicate with the authors to facilitate the necessary revisions. If the original peer reviewers are satisfied with the revision, the Editor will proceed with manuscript editing, ultimately forwarding the edited manuscript to the authors for proofreading of the full content.

The Editor-in-Chief of each BPG journal has overall responsibility for academic quality control, editorial oversight, and the final academic decision on manuscript acceptance. When appropriate, the Editor-in-Chief may seek academic assistance from an Associate Editor or Editorial Board Member during the final academic review; however, the final academic decision, including acceptance, further revision, or rejection, is made or confirmed by the Editor-in-Chief in accordance with the journal’s editorial governance structure. Technical, formatting, production, or administrative checks do not replace the final academic decision, which remains under the responsibility of the Editor-in-Chief. In this assessment, the academic quality of the manuscript is assessed based on the AI detection report, iThenticate similarity report, the initial peer review reports, re-review reports, ethical approval documentation, authors’ AI contribution statement, and the final manuscript after editing and author proofreading. In the final review process, the innovativeness and importance of the manuscript will be re-evaluated, and AI detection results are used only as an editorial screening reference and are not used as the sole basis for editorial decisions. Key questions include: Is the topic novel? Are the results innovative? Are the data true? Is the conclusion definite? Does the manuscript have broad medical interest and general importance?

The Responsible Technical Editor makes the final publication verification based on the quality of the manuscript editing. If the manuscript has passed the Editor-in-Chief’s academic quality acceptance, the Responsible Technical Editor then proceeds to verify the correctness of the manuscript and related files, to ensure that the manuscript and related files meet the technical requirements for publication. This verification process includes: (1) Confirming that all related manuscript files are complete, correct, compliant with standards, and properly named; (2) Verifying that the ethical approval document is in the official language of the country from which the manuscript originated; (3) Checking that any personally identifiable information in relevant documents such as informed consent forms and treatment consent forms has been redacted; (4) Verifying that a funding approval document has been provided for each funding source; (5) Verifying the authenticity of the language editing certificate the author provided, where applicable; (6) Ensuring that the peer review reports are correct and that the reviewers’ academic degrees, professional titles, and country information are fully displayed; and (7) Verifying that the Editor Work Checklist has been completed correctly and thoroughly. In addition, the Responsible Technical Editor reviews the quality of manuscript editing, which includes checking whether the following elements comply with editing and publication standards: Manuscript type, title, author names, author affiliations, author contributions, funding support, abstract, citation information, core tips, main text, references, signatures of peer reviewers and editors, figures, figure legends, and tables. Finally, manuscripts that are formally accepted for publication are made available online as Articles in Press and forwarded to the Production Department for manuscript production.

After the manuscript is formally accepted for publication, the manuscript will be available as an Article in Press, an online pre-publication stage before final online publication. Once the manuscript enters the Articles in Press stage, a formal DOI is registered through the Crossref Pending Publication mechanism. This DOI may be used to identify and cite the article before final assignment of volume, issue, article numbers, final publication date, and complete citation details. After final online publication, BPG will update the complete publication metadata in Crossref, and the same DOI will resolve to the final published article page. 

After the manuscript has been accepted for publication, the Production Editor generates a PDF proof based on the accepted manuscript and its accompanying figures, and sends it to the authors via email for proofreading. The specific process includes the following steps: (1) Formatting the figures based on the image files submitted by the authors; (2) Converting the accepted manuscript Word document into an XML document; (3) Converting the PDF proof from the XML document and figures, and performing internal proofreading; (4) Notifying the authors via email to proofread the PDF document; (5) Checking if the authors’ proofreading has been carried out; and (6) Revising and updating the PDF document based on the authors’ feedback, and returning it to the authors for additional proofreading if necessary. Authors are responsible for carefully reviewing the PDF proof and notifying the Editorial Office of any required corrections within the specified timeframe. Note that we may proceed with the publication of the article if no response is received. 

12.1 Production and Website Preview. The Responsible Production Editor prepares the article's PDF, HTML, and XML, and the related manuscript files on the journal website in accordance with the publication schedule established by the Production Department Director. The process begins with the Responsible Production Editor ‌producing the cover, table of contents, and the complete issue e-journal PDF for the issue in which the article will be published, and publishing an HTML preview on the journal website; after verifying that the preview is error-free, the Production Editor submits it to the Production Department Director for review.

12.2 Production Department Director’s Verification. The Production Department Director then reviews the PDF against the accepted manuscript to ensure that it has been produced correctly and complies with the journal’s formatting rules and standards, and communicates any issues requiring correction to the Responsible Production Editor, who revises and updates the PDF and HTML documents based on the feedback.

12.3 Final Publication, Metadata Update, Archiving, and Promotion. The Responsible Production Editor then updates the complete publication metadata of the article’s DOI number in Crossref, officially publishes the article's PDF, HTML, and XML, and related academic integrity files along with the cover image, and after verifying that all content is correct, notifies the Production Department Director to initiate further review. The Production Department Director checks that the published HTML is displayed correctly, including the article type, publication date, subtitles, author list, main text, figures, tables, and references; verifies that the PDF is the latest version, that any supplementary materials and videos (if applicable) can be downloaded correctly, that the complete publication metadata of the DOI has been successfully updated, and that all related academic integrity files have been published successfully; and communicates any issues requiring correction to the Responsible Production Editor, who revises and updates the article's PDF, HTML, and XML, and related files based on the feedback, then archives the files, and sends an email to the authors notifying them of the article’s publication and inviting them to submit an Author Evaluation. Finally, the Production Department Director selects and recommends featured articles for the current issue on the journal website, recommends the cover image for the current issue on the BPG homepage, sends an email to readers in relevant fields to promote the published articles and notifies the authors of the outreach results, and notifies the Editor-in-Chief of the publication of the articles in the current issue by email.

13.1 Disclosure of Peer Review Reports. Peer review reports, authors’ responses to peer review reports, and the Peer-Review Report’s Classification for the manuscript’s scientific quality, novelty, creativity or innovation, and scientific significance are made publicly available through the article’s PDF and/or online version.

13.2 Author Evaluation. To continually improve editorial and publishing quality, BPG journals invite authors to evaluate the various stages of the process according to their experience—including manuscript submission, peer review, revision, language editing, article-processing charges, and electronic/online publishing—after each article is published.

13.3 Post-Publication Article Quality Evaluation. After the formal publication of each article, the Editorial Office invites Editorial Board Members/Peer Reviewers to evaluate the scientific quality of the newly published content.

13.4 Reader Comments and Scholarly Discussion. For each issue published across the spectrum of BPG journals, the Editorial Office sends targeted invitations to relevant scholars, inviting them to comment on articles of interest as readers and submit their comments online.