About Thoracic Radiology

Thoracic Radiology

Overview and identity

Thoracic Radiology is an English-language, peer-reviewed, open-access journal based in Beijing, China, published through KeAi Communications with publishing services provided by Elsevier. The journal is owned by the Euro-Asia Alliance for Medical Innovation, which retains copyright of the overall compiled journal and the compiled issues. Its editorial office address is No. 2 Anzhen Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing, China, and the office can be contacted at editoroffice@thoracic-radiology.org. The journal is published quarterly.

The journal describes itself as a high-quality platform for scientists, researchers and physicians working in thoracic imaging. Its purpose is threefold: to let specialists share their findings, to disseminate cutting-edge developments in imaging technologies, artificial intelligence applications and translational research, and to bridge the gap between imaging science and patient care by facilitating the translation of novel imaging technologies into clinical practice. That translational emphasis — moving new imaging methods out of the laboratory and into routine diagnosis and treatment — is the defining idea behind the journal.

Scope and priority areas

Thoracic Radiology covers the imaging of the chest and its organs. The journal states that preference will be given to articles based on five priority areas. The first is pulmonary imaging, covering the lungs and airways, the traditional core of chest radiology. The second is cardiovascular and thoracic vascular imaging, covering the heart and the great vessels of the chest.

The third priority area is breast, chest wall, mediastinal and other thoracic glandular imaging, which extends the journal's remit beyond the lungs and heart to the full anatomy of the thorax, including the mediastinum at the centre of the chest and the structures of the chest wall. The fourth is artificial intelligence and machine learning in thoracic imaging, reflecting the rapid adoption of automated detection, quantification and triage tools in chest imaging. The fifth is multimodal and translational research, together with clinical applications and guidelines — work that combines imaging methods, connects imaging to other forms of clinical evidence, or sets standards for practice.

Article types: original research and reviews

The journal publishes a wide range of article types, each with its own requirements set out in its Guide for Authors. Original Research articles provide new knowledge based on original research; studies should be hypothesis-driven, with well-described methods that can effectively answer the question addressed, and appropriate statistical analyses are required. Authors of clinical trials are asked to provide the trial's assigned number. Original Research is limited to no more than 5,000 words, a structured abstract of no more than 300 words, 35 references (a limit that may be extended for meta-analyses), six figures and four tables.

Review Articles — narrative reviews — are written by experts in the field and should be focused, timely and comprehensive, in-depth reviews of a specific topic of interest. They describe no new research information, should be written at the level of the general radiologist rather than the specialist, and should be balanced and authoritative, serving as the definitive reference on the topic discussed. All review articles undergo peer review. Reviews are limited to no more than 5,000 words, with a ten percent buffer allowed, an unstructured abstract of no more than 200 words, up to twelve figures and four tables, and no fixed limit on references.

Article types: synthesis, cases and images

Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses investigate a defined clinical question based on a selection and synthesis of the available evidence, possibly with a statistical summary. They are organised into four major sections — Introduction, Evidence Acquisition, Evidence Synthesis and Discussion — and should adhere to the PRISMA guidelines. Their abstracts are capped at 350 words and organised into six sections: Background, Objective, Evidence Acquisition, Evidence Synthesis, Conclusion and Clinical Impact. The maximum length is 6,000 words, again with a ten percent buffer.

Case Reports are brief reports of individual patients or small cohorts reporting novel findings of unexpected clinical significance, peer-reviewed and under 1,200 words in length. Case Series consist of two to ten clinical cases with the same clinical condition, describing each patient's presentation, diagnostic work-up, interventions and outcomes in stages, with expert commentary between stages and a closing discussion with take-home messages; they are capped at 2,000 words and ten authors. Images in Radiology presents state-of-the-art images covering common and uncommon radiologic conditions, where the imaging findings are compelling, visually appealing and demonstrative; these pieces are explicitly not intended to be case reports. Short Communications report original and significant material for rapid dissemination and are expected to have a higher-than-average impact on the field rather than reporting incremental research.

Article types: editorials, guidelines and perspectives

Thoracic Radiology also publishes several forms of expert commentary. Targeted Editorials are invited by the Editorial Office and explain the importance of an Original Research report in the context of other work in the field; they run to 1,200–1,500 words and are written so that a radiologist with general knowledge, rather than a subspecialist, will understand the topic. Editorial Opinions, also by invitation only, address topics of general interest to the field in no more than 2,000 words.

Guideline and Consensus submissions are encouraged from authoritative, recognised medical groups or societies. They include scientific statements and medical guidelines on topics relevant to radiologic imaging and intervention, must be supported by published scientific studies and/or acknowledged expert panels, and are recommended to be no more than 4,500 words, with figures and tables encouraged. Perspectives are essays by residents or fellows in clinical radiology or imaging sciences, reflecting on trainee experience in research, clinical practice, ethics or health policy; topics must be approved by the editor in advance, and Perspectives run to 1,200–1,500 words. Letters to the Editor offer constructive comments on published articles and must be received within four weeks of the article's online publication; they are limited to 350 words with no figures or tables.

Peer review process

The journal follows a single anonymized review process. Submissions are initially assessed by the editors to determine suitability for publication; suitable manuscripts are typically sent to a minimum of two reviewers for an independent expert assessment of their scientific quality, and the decision to accept or reject is taken by the editors and is final. Submissions to KeAi journals are automatically screened using iThenticate's CrossCheck within the editorial system to detect plagiarism, including overlapping and similar text.

The journal's stated workflow runs in stages: the editorial office reviews all manuscripts and desk-rejects papers that fail basic standards for reasons such as being out of scope, ethical conflicts, high similarity, lack of originality or flaws in research design or methods; selected papers are reassigned to the Editor-in-Chief, who invites reviewers or assigns an editorial board member to do so; after at least two reviewers report, the Editor-in-Chief or assigned editor gives feedback to the authors; and on resubmission of a revised manuscript, the assigned editor and Editor-in-Chief collaborate on the final decision. Editors are not involved in decisions about papers they have written themselves, papers by family members or colleagues, or papers relating to products or services in which they have an interest, and peer review for the journal is the responsibility of its Editorial Board.

Open access and publication charges

Thoracic Radiology is a fully open-access journal with no subscription charges: all articles are immediately and permanently free for everyone to read, download, copy and distribute. Articles are published under a Creative Commons licence chosen by the author — either CC BY, which allows others to copy, adapt and make commercial use of the article with appropriate credit, or CC BY-NC-ND, which allows copying and distribution for non-commercial purposes provided the article is not altered. Authors retain copyright alongside scholarly usage rights, while KeAi Communications Co., Ltd. and the Euro-Asia Alliance for Medical Innovation receive non-exclusive publishing and distribution rights.

The article publishing charge is USD 1,000 plus taxes. The journal's Guide for Authors notes that the USD 1,000 charge is covered by the Euro-Asia Alliance for Medical Innovation, and its open-access statement adds that all article processing charges for articles submitted before 14 October 2028 will be fully waived. For authors, that combination means the journal's launch period carries no publication fee, removing a common barrier for clinician-researchers who lack dedicated open-access funding.

Why a dedicated thoracic imaging journal

The journal's scope reflects how specialised chest imaging has become. A recent review of developments and future trends in thoracic radiology, summarised by Massachusetts General Hospital's Advances publication, noted that artificial intelligence is already used in automated or assisted detection algorithms that facilitate radiologist performance, with certain algorithms approved for detection of line and tube positions, nodules, pulmonary emboli, pneumothorax and rib fractures, and that AI applications already allow automated quantification of coronary arterial calcification, emphysema and body composition. The same review highlighted new techniques including photon-counting detector CT, dynamic cine MRI, hyperpolarised xenon MRI and dark-field chest radiography, and observed that advances in CT, MRI and PET have enabled not only qualitative improvement in chest imaging but also functional data and quantitative assessment.

A journal that gives explicit priority to AI and machine learning in thoracic imaging, to multimodal and translational research, and to guidelines and consensus statements is therefore positioned at the point where those technical advances meet clinical practice. Its mix of article types — from quantitative original research and PRISMA-compliant meta-analyses to image-led features and trainee Perspectives — is designed to serve working radiologists and referring physicians as well as imaging scientists.

Publisher context

Thoracic Radiology is published through KeAi Communications, a Beijing-based joint venture co-founded by two leading scientific, technical and medical publishers, China Science Publishing & Media and Elsevier. Repurposed in 2013 as an open-access journal publishing service provider, KeAi has developed a portfolio of more than 280 scholarly journals across all scientific disciplines, leveraging the publishing and technology capabilities of its parent companies, including the ScienceDirect platform, editorial systems, data analytics and production.

Within that portfolio, Thoracic Radiology is one of a group of newly launched, English-language, open-access medical titles aimed at international authorship and readership. Its ownership by the Euro-Asia Alliance for Medical Innovation, its Beijing editorial office on Anzhen Road in Chaoyang District, and its quarterly schedule give it a defined institutional home, while KeAi's infrastructure places its articles on the same global platform used by established Elsevier journals.