Peer review is the cornerstone of scientific publication quality. The Korean Journal of Interventional Radiology (KJIR) is grateful to the expert reviewers who volunteer their time and expertise to evaluate submitted manuscripts. These guidelines are provided to help reviewers conduct thorough, constructive, and timely reviews that serve both the authors and the interventional radiology community.
KJIR uses a double-blind peer review process. Neither the identities of the authors nor those of the reviewers are disclosed during the review process. All communications occur through the KJIR online submission portal (https://submit.kjironline.org).
Reviewers serve as independent expert advisors to the Editor-in-Chief and Associate Editors. The primary responsibilities of a reviewer are:
Important: The final publication decision rests entirely with the editors. Reviewer recommendations are advisory and not binding.
Upon receiving a review invitation, please respond promptly — within 3 business days. When deciding whether to accept:
Tip: If you decline, please suggest the names and contact information of 1–2 alternative reviewers with relevant expertise. This assists the editorial office in identifying qualified reviewers.
Reviewers must decline the review invitation or immediately notify the editorial office if any of the following apply:
Important: Because KJIR uses double-blind review, reviewer identities are not disclosed to authors. However, reviewers may occasionally be able to infer the identity of authors from the institutional context, references, or subject matter. If this occurs, reviewers should notify the editorial office and recuse themselves if a conflict exists.
The manuscript assigned for review is a confidential document. Reviewers must:
AI-assisted reviewing: Reviewers may use AI tools (e.g., large language models) only for language checking of their own written review. Uploading or submitting the manuscript content to any AI system is strictly prohibited, as this constitutes a confidentiality breach. Any suspected misuse will be investigated under COPE guidelines.
| Article Type | Review Deadline | Extension Policy |
|---|---|---|
| Original Article / Systematic Review / Narrative Review | 14 days | Up to 7-day extension available on request |
| Technical Note | 14 days | Up to 7-day extension available on request |
| Case Report | 14 days | Up to 5-day extension available on request |
| Letter to the Editor | 14 days | Up to 5-day extension available on request |
If you require an extension, please notify the editorial office as early as possible via the online submission portal. Reviewers who fail to submit their review without prior notification may be removed from the KJIR reviewer panel.
A well-structured review report helps authors understand exactly what needs to be addressed and assists editors in making a well-informed decision. KJIR requests that all review reports follow the structure below.
Begin with a concise paragraph (3–6 sentences) summarizing the study's purpose, design, main findings, and your overall assessment of its scientific merit and suitability for KJIR. This section is shared with the authors.
List all substantive issues that must be addressed before the manuscript can be considered for publication. Each concern should be:
Major concerns typically include: fundamental methodological flaws, inappropriate statistical methods, unjustified conclusions, missing key data, inadequate discussion of limitations, ethical compliance issues, and deficiencies in the reporting of primary outcomes.
List smaller issues that should be corrected but that do not fundamentally affect the manuscript's conclusions. Examples: unclear figure legends, imprecise terminology, missing abbreviation definitions, inconsistent data between text and tables. Number these separately from major concerns.
Optional. If you have specific feedback about individual sections (Abstract, Methods, Results, Discussion, References, Figures), you may organize these comments by section for clarity.
This section is not shared with the authors. Use it to:
Style guidance: Address comments to 'the authors' or 'the manuscript,' not 'you.' Maintain a collegial, objective tone throughout. Avoid dismissive language. The purpose of the review is to improve science, not to judge the authors personally.
The following criteria should guide your assessment. Not all criteria apply equally to every article type.
| ☐ | Novelty: Does the manuscript report findings that are genuinely new, or does it provide meaningful incremental advance on existing knowledge? |
| ☐ | Significance: Will the findings influence clinical practice, technique, or understanding of interventional radiology? |
| ☐ | Scope: Is the topic appropriate for KJIR? Is it within the field of interventional radiology? |
| ☐ | Timeliness: Is the topic currently relevant to the IR community? |
| ☐ | Design appropriateness: Is the study design appropriate for the research question? Was a more rigorous design feasible? |
| ☐ | Level of evidence: What is the study's level of evidence (see table in Section 7.8)? Is this stated or implied in the manuscript? |
| ☐ | Patient selection: Are inclusion/exclusion criteria clearly defined? Is selection bias addressed? |
| ☐ | Sample size: Is the sample size justified (e.g., power calculation for prospective studies)? Is the study adequately powered? |
| ☐ | Comparator: Is there an appropriate comparison group? If not, is the absence justified? |
| ☐ | Prospective vs. retrospective: Is the retrospective design acknowledged as a limitation? Are its implications for bias discussed? |
| ☐ | Multicenter: For multicenter studies, is institutional heterogeneity addressed? |
| ☐ | Follow-up: Is follow-up duration adequate and consistent with the clinical question? |
| ☐ | IRB approval: Is IRB approval or waiver stated for all study types, including case reports? |
| ☐ | Informed consent: Is informed consent documented appropriately? |
| ☐ | Animal studies: For animal studies, is IACUC approval and compliance with ARRIVE 2.0 confirmed? |
| ☐ | Patient anonymization: Are all patient-identifiable details removed from figures and text? |
| ☐ | Clinical trial registration: For prospective trials, is a registration number (CRIS, ClinicalTrials.gov, or WHO registry) provided? |
| ☐ | Appropriateness: Are the statistical methods appropriate for the data type and study design? |
| ☐ | Description: Are all statistical tests named and justified? Is the software stated? |
| ☐ | Presentation: Are results reported with appropriate measures of central tendency and variability (mean ± SD or median [IQR])? Are confidence intervals provided? |
| ☐ | P-values: Are exact p-values reported? Is clinical significance distinguished from statistical significance? |
| ☐ | Multivariate analysis: If multivariate analysis is used, are covariates justified? Is collinearity assessed? |
| ☐ | Missing data: Is the handling of missing data described and appropriate? |
| ☐ | Reproducibility: For quantitative imaging studies, is inter-/intra-reader variability reported? |
| ☐ | Completeness: Are all primary and secondary outcomes reported? Are negative results presented? |
| ☐ | Consistency: Are results consistent between abstract, text, tables, and figures? |
| ☐ | Overclaiming: Are conclusions supported by the data? Are claims of causality justified by the study design? |
| ☐ | Generalizability: Are the limits of generalizability addressed (single-center, specific patient population, operator experience)? |
| ☐ | Limitations: Are the study's limitations discussed honestly and completely? |
| ☐ | Checklist submitted: Has the appropriate reporting checklist been submitted (CONSORT, STROBE, PRISMA, CARE, STARD, ARRIVE 2.0, CLAIM 2024)? |
| ☐ | Checklist adherence: Does the manuscript conform to the relevant reporting guideline? Note any missing elements. |
| ☐ | Image quality: Are radiologic and other images of adequate resolution, contrast, brightness, and annotation? |
| ☐ | Relevance: Do figures contribute meaningfully to the manuscript? Are any redundant? |
| ☐ | Legends: Are figure legends self-explanatory and complete? |
| ☐ | Table accuracy: Are tables internally consistent and accurately referenced in the text? |
| ☐ | Anonymization: Are all patient identifiers removed from images? |
Use the Oxford Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine (OCEBM) hierarchy as adapted by the Society of Interventional Radiology (SIR) when assessing and commenting on study design:
| Level | Study Type |
|---|---|
| 1a | Systematic review / meta-analysis of RCTs |
| 1b | Individual RCT with narrow confidence interval |
| 2a | Systematic review of cohort studies |
| 2b | Individual cohort study / low-quality RCT |
| 3a | Systematic review of case-control studies |
| 3b | Individual case-control study |
| 4 | Case series / poor-quality cohort or case-control study |
| 5 | Expert opinion, mechanism-based reasoning, case report |
Note: Reviewers are encouraged to comment on the level of evidence represented by the manuscript and whether the Discussion section appropriately contextualizes the study within this hierarchy.
At the conclusion of your review, provide a recommendation to the editors. Use the Confidential Comments to the Editor section for this recommendation. The available decisions are:
| Decision | Criteria |
|---|---|
| Accept | Manuscript is scientifically sound, meets all ethical and formatting requirements, and makes a clear contribution to the field. No substantive revisions required. |
| Minor Revision | The manuscript is largely sound but requires limited, clearly defined revisions (clarifications, additional data presentation, minor methodological explanations). Authors can address comments within 30 days. |
| Major Revision | The manuscript has meaningful scientific merit but requires substantial revisions: additional analyses, expanded discussion of limitations, methodological justification, or reanalysis of data. Authors are given 60 days. |
| Reject | The manuscript has fundamental methodological flaws, does not meet ethical standards, lacks originality or significance, or falls outside KJIR scope. Rejection does not preclude future independent submissions on the same topic. |
Note: Do not communicate your recommendation (Accept / Reject / Revision) directly to the authors in the main review text. The recommendation belongs in the Confidential Comments to the Editor only.
KJIR publishes manuscripts in English. As reviewers, you are not required to correct grammar or language — this is the responsibility of the authors and the publisher's copy-editing team. However:
Korean author context: Many KJIR authors are Korean-speaking clinicians writing in English as a second language. Reviewers are encouraged to assess scientific content rigorously while maintaining a collegial and fair approach to language quality.
When a revised manuscript is assigned to you, you will receive the revised manuscript, a response letter from the authors, and a tracked-changes version of the manuscript. Please:
Important: Re-reviewing a revision is not an opportunity to raise entirely new scientific objections unrelated to the original concerns. Introducing repeated or expanding new concerns causes undue burden on authors and delays publication. The KJIR editorial office may intervene if cyclical reviewing is identified.
KJIR follows COPE guidelines for peer review ethics. Reviewers are expected to adhere to the following principles:
Any suspected ethical violation — including suspected fraud, data fabrication, duplicate submission, or undisclosed conflicts of interest — should be reported to the editorial office via the Confidential Comments to the Editor, not in the authors' review text.
All reviews must be submitted through the KJIR online submission portal (https://submit.kjironline.org). Do not send review comments directly by e-mail.
When submitting, please complete:
Questions regarding the review process may be directed to: editor@kjironline.org
© Korean Society of Interventional Radiology. All rights reserved.
