Instructions for authors
Journal scope and article types
The Polish Journal of Pathology is the official journal of the Polish Society of Pathologists. The journal publishes peer-reviewed articles relevant to diagnostic, academic, translational and experimental pathology, with particular emphasis on human pathology, precision diagnostics, molecular pathology, digital pathology, computational pathology, biomarker studies, immunohistochemistry, cytopathology, autopsy pathology, biobanking, pathology quality assurance, clinicopathological correlations and education in pathology.
The journal welcomes submissions from pathologists, laboratory medicine specialists, clinical researchers, translational scientists, molecular diagnosticians, bioinformaticians and other professionals working in pathology and diagnostic medicine. The Editors may suggest reclassification of a manuscript if another format is more appropriate.
Before submission: essential checklist:
• Confirm that the manuscript is original, has not been published previously in print or electronic format, and is not under consideration elsewhere.
• Prepare the manuscript in English, using either British or American spelling consistently throughout.
• Prepare the main manuscript file in .doc, .docx, or .rtf format, double-spaced, in 12-point font, with an unjustified right margin and adequate margins.
• Upload the title page, manuscript text, tables, figure legends, figures, and supplementary materials as required by the online submission system.
• Provide an abstract and keywords where required for the article type.
• Ensure that all references are cited in the text in the order in which they appear and that DOIs are provided where available.
• Include a cover letter and all required declarations: authorship, originality, conflicts of interest, funding, ethics approval, informed consent, data availability, and AI disclosure where applicable.
• For human tissue or clinical data, include ethics approval details or a clear statement explaining waiver/exemption or why approval was not required.
• For pathology images, whole-slide images, and clinical images, remove all patient identifiers, slide labels, barcodes, QR codes, accession numbers, and identifying metadata.
• Ensure that all figures meet image integrity requirements, and that original source image files are retained and can be provided to the Editors if requested.
• Obtain written permission for personal communications, unpublished data, identifiable patient information, and any previously published material reproduced or adapted in the manuscript.
Submission and editorial process
Manuscripts should be submitted through the online editorial system:
• www.pjp.termedia.pl/editorialsystem
Authors should not submit manuscripts by post or e-mail unless specifically instructed by the Editorial Office. Figures should be uploaded as separate files. Supplementary materials should be clearly labelled and referred to in the manuscript text.
Editorial assessment and peer review
The Editor will perform an initial assessment to determine whether the manuscript falls within the journal’s scope and meets basic editorial, ethical, and scientific requirements. Manuscripts may be rejected without external review if they are outside the scope of the journal, scientifically insufficient, incomplete, ethically problematic, or not prepared in accordance with the journal’s instructions.
Manuscripts considered suitable for review are evaluated by independent experts. Reviewers are expected to treat manuscripts as confidential documents, declare any potential conflicts of interest, and provide objective, constructive, and evidence-based assessments. Requests for citation of additional literature should be scientifically justified and should not be used to increase citations to the reviewer’s own work without clear relevance.
The journal aims to provide a decision after external peer review within approximately 6 weeks of submission. This timeframe is indicative and may vary depending on reviewer availability, manuscript complexity, the need for additional expert assessment, and the number of revision rounds required.
What to include in the cover letter?
• Full names, academic degrees, and affiliations of all authors.
• The corresponding author’s complete mailing address, telephone number, and e-mail address.
• A statement that the manuscript is original, has not been published previously, and is not under consideration elsewhere.
• A statement that all authors have approved the final version and agree to submission.
• A brief explanation of the importance and novelty of the work.
• Information on prior presentation at a meeting or conference, including meeting name, place and date.
• Information on financial support, grants, equipment or reagent support, medical writing assistance, statistical consultation, or image-analysis support.
• A statement regarding ethics approval, informed consent, data availability and use of AI-assisted technologies, where applicable.
• Name and affiliation of any statistical reviewer, bioinformatician, image-analysis specialist or methodological consultant who contributed to the work but does not meet authorship criteria.
How to prepare a manuscript?
General format
• Use clear scientific English. Authors not fully familiar with English usage are encouraged to seek language editing before submission; authors remain responsible for the content and accuracy of the manuscript.
• Use 12-point font, double spacing, margins of at least 2.5 cm and an unjustified right margin.
• Avoid unnecessary formatting, embedded images in Word files, automatic hyphenation, excessive footnotes and non-standard fonts.
Title page
• Concise and informative title.
• Full first and last names of all authors.
• Affiliations of all authors, including department, institution, city and country.
• ORCID identifiers for at least the first author.
• Corresponding author’s name, full address and e-mail address.
• Sources of support and grant numbers.
• Conflict of interest statement.
• Word count, number of tables, number of figures and number of supplementary files where requested.
Abstract, keywords and main text
Original articles should include a structured or unstructured abstract, depending on article type and journal requirements. Review articles and case reports should include concise unstructured abstracts where required. The abstract should present the purpose, methods, main findings, and conclusions without overstatement.
Up to five keywords should be provided, preferably corresponding to Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) or other widely used biomedical terminology.
Original articles should generally be organised as Introduction, Materials and methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusions, Acknowledgments, References, Tables and Figure legends. Review articles may be divided into appropriate sections and subsections. Case reports should include sufficient clinical, pathological, diagnostic and follow-up information to support the educational value of the case while preserving patient confidentiality. Abbreviations should be defined at first use in the abstract, main text, tables and figures. Measurements should be reported in SI units where applicable.
Authorship, contributors and author contributions
Each listed author must have contributed sufficiently to the intellectual content of the submission and must be able to take public responsibility for the work. Authorship should be based on substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work, acquisition of data, analysis or interpretation of data, drafting or critical revision of the manuscript, approval of the final version, and agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work.
The corresponding author is responsible for ensuring that all authors meet authorship criteria, that no eligible author has been omitted, and that all authors have approved the submitted version. Contributors who do not meet authorship criteria should be acknowledged, with their role and potential conflicts of interest disclosed where relevant.
The manuscript should include an Author Contributions statement. The journal encourages use of the CRediT taxonomy where appropriate, including roles such as conceptualization, methodology, investigation, formal analysis, data curation, writing - original draft, writing - review and editing, visualization, supervision, project administration and funding acquisition.
Changes in authorship after submission, including addition, removal or rearrangement of authors, require a written explanation and written agreement from all authors, including the author being added or removed. The Editors may request institutional confirmation in cases of dispute.
Ethics, consent and use of human material
Human tissue samples, archival material and clinicopathological data
Many manuscripts submitted to the Polish Journal of Pathology are based on biobanked material, archival diagnostic material including formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded tissue blocks, tissue microarrays, cytological specimens, digital slides, immunohistochemical stains, molecular pathology results, or retrospectively collected clinicopathological data.
Authors are responsible for ensuring that the use of the above-mentioned material and associated clinical data complies with applicable institutional, national, and international regulations. Where required, the manuscript should include a statement confirming approval by an appropriate institutional review board or ethics committee. The statement should provide the full name of the approving committee or institutional review board, the date of approval, and the approval or reference number.
If ethics approval was waived or deemed unnecessary, this should be clearly stated, together with the name of the institution or committee granting the waiver and the reason for the waiver. Where applicable, authors should state whether informed consent was obtained, waived or not required under relevant regulations. If consent was waived, the manuscript should identify the body or institution granting the waiver.
Patient privacy, rare diseases and identifiable cases
Even when direct identifiers are removed, some patients may remain identifiable because of rare diagnoses, unusual clinical courses, distinctive images, unique molecular findings or a combination of demographic and clinical details. Authors should exercise particular caution when reporting rare tumours, unusual syndromes, paediatric cases, hereditary cancer syndromes, rare molecular alterations or highly distinctive clinical-pathological presentations. In such cases, written informed consent for publication may be required even if names, initials and hospital numbers are removed. The Editors may request clarification regarding consent, anonymisation or ethics approval where patient identifiability is a concern.
Animal research
Manuscripts describing animal experiments must state that the study was conducted in accordance with applicable legal, institutional and ethical requirements for the care and use of laboratory animals. Authors should identify the approving animal ethics committee where applicable and provide the approval/reference number. The Methods section should include sufficient information on anaesthesia, analgesia, surgical procedures, welfare monitoring and humane endpoints where relevant.
Tables, figures, pathology images and image integrity
Tables
Tables should be numbered with Roman numerals in the order of citation in the text and supplied with concise descriptive titles. Abbreviations used in tables should be explained below the table. Tables should not duplicate information already presented in the text or figures.
Figure files and legends
• Figures and photographs should be numbered with Arabic numerals and uploaded as separate files.
• Preferred formats include .tif, .jpg and .png for raster images.
• Photographs, including pathology images and portraits, should generally be submitted at a minimum resolution of 600 dpi at the final publication size.
• Figures combining photographs with labels, arrows, diagrams, charts or other graphical elements should be submitted at a minimum resolution of 600 dpi at the final publication size.
• Pure line drawings or bitmapped line art should be submitted at a minimum resolution of 1200 dpi.
• Figures should not be embedded only in Microsoft Office files; separate high-quality source files should be provided.
• Multi-panel figures should be clearly labelled. If panels originate from different cases, stains, fields, magnifications, time points or experimental conditions, this must be clear from the layout and legend.
• Figure legends should provide sufficient diagnostic and technical information. For pathology images, legends should state the staining method. For immunohistochemistry, the antibody and clone should be provided where relevant. Scale bars are preferred to magnification factors, particularly when the exact scale is important.
Anonymisation of images and whole-slide images
All images, including histopathological, cytological, immunohistochemical, immunofluorescence, molecular pathology, gross pathology, radiological-pathological correlation images and whole-slide images, must be appropriately anonymised. Authors must remove patient names, initials, hospital numbers, accession numbers, specimen or block numbers, dates of birth, barcodes, QR codes, slide labels, direct identifiers and identifying metadata before submission.
Pathology images, including microscopic images, whole-slide images, X-rays, ultrasound images, laparoscopic images and similar diagnostic images, usually do not require separate consent for publication if they are fully anonymised and do not allow identification of the patient. However, if there is any reasonable possibility that a patient could be identified, authors must obtain appropriate written consent for publication.
Image integrity and acceptable processing
Submitted images must accurately represent the original observations. Authors must not modify images in a way that could misrepresent the underlying data, diagnostic features, staining pattern, morphology, signal intensity, localisation, distribution or interpretation. The journal may request clarification or the original source files if the image's integrity is uncertain.
Adjustments of brightness, contrast, colour balance, sharpness, background, thresholding, dynamic range, pseudocolouring, gamma correction or similar parameters are acceptable only when applied uniformly to the entire image and when they do not obscure, eliminate, enhance or create any specific feature. Any non-linear adjustment, pseudocolouring, thresholding or image-processing step that affects interpretation should be disclosed in the Methods section or figure legend.
The following practices are not acceptable:
• Adding, removing, moving, obscuring or selectively enhancing cells, tissue structures, staining signals, bands, labels or other image elements.
• Using image processing to alter the diagnostic impression or apparent intensity, distribution, or localisation of staining.
• Splicing images without clear demarcation and explanation.
• Reusing the same image or image region to represent different cases, markers, time points, magnifications, or experimental conditions without transparent disclosure.
• Presenting illustrative images as representative without an adequate basis.
Composite figures must be clearly assembled and described. If images from different cases, stains, fields, magnifications, time points, experimental conditions, or analytical outputs are combined into a single figure, this must be evident from the figure layout and legend. Boundaries between spliced or juxtaposed image parts should be clearly indicated when there is any possibility of ambiguity.
The Editors may request original, uncropped, unprocessed image files, whole-slide images, source microscopy files, acquisition metadata, or additional documentation at any stage of editorial assessment or after publication. Failure to provide source images when reasonably requested may affect editorial decisions.
Methodological requirements for specific study types
Diagnostic, prognostic, predictive and biomarker studies
Manuscripts reporting diagnostic, prognostic, predictive, molecular, immunohistochemical, or biomarker studies should provide sufficient methodological detail to allow readers to assess reliability and reproducibility. Where applicable, authors should describe:
• Patient selection and inclusion/exclusion criteria.
• Specimen type and fixation/processing methods.
• For immunohistochemistry, immunofluorescence, and other similar methods: antibody clone, supplier, dilution, platform, antigen retrieval method, detection system, and controls.
• Scoring method, cut-off values, interobserver assessment and adjudication procedures.
• Molecular testing method, platform, quality control criteria and reporting thresholds.
• Statistical methods, handling of missing data and correction for multiple testing where relevant.
• Validation cohort or external validation, where applicable.
Authors are encouraged to follow recognised reporting guidelines where relevant, including but not limited to STARD for diagnostic accuracy studies, REMARK for tumour marker prognostic studies, TRIPOD and AI-specific extensions for prediction models, CONSORT for clinical trials, PRISMA for systematic reviews and CARE for case reports.
Digital pathology and computational image analysis
Manuscripts involving digital pathology, whole-slide imaging, quantitative image analysis, machine learning, artificial intelligence or computational pathology should provide sufficient methodological detail to allow scientific assessment and reproducibility. Where applicable, authors should describe:
• Scanner type, manufacturer, scanning magnification or resolution and image format.
• Tissue type, staining method, number of cases and slides analysed.
• Inclusion and exclusion criteria for images or regions of interest.
• Annotation procedures, including who performed the annotations and whether they were reviewed by pathologists.
• Software, algorithms, model architecture, version numbers and relevant parameters.
• Training, validation and test datasets, including whether these datasets were independent.
• Performance metrics and statistical methods.
• Quality control procedures for digital slides and image analysis outputs.
For AI- or machine-learning-based studies, authors should clearly distinguish between exploratory, retrospective, validation and clinically implemented tools. Claims regarding diagnostic performance, clinical utility or generalisability should be supported by appropriate validation. Where patient-level data, digital slides, or image datasets cannot be made publicly available because of privacy, legal, institutional or ethical restrictions, this limitation should be stated explicitly in the Data Availability Statement.
Artificial intelligence-assisted technologies
The use of artificial intelligence-assisted technologies must be disclosed transparently. Authors should specify whether AI tools were used for language editing, data analysis, literature screening, image processing, figure preparation, graphical illustration or any other part of the work.
• AI tools, chatbots, image generators and similar systems cannot be listed as authors because they cannot take responsibility for the integrity, originality, accuracy and accountability required for authorship.
• AI-generated or AI-modified images must not be presented as original histopathological, cytological, immunohistochemical, molecular, radiological, gross pathology or experimental data.
• Any use of AI to create illustrative, schematic or graphical material must be clearly disclosed in the manuscript and figure legend.
• Authors remain fully responsible for checking the accuracy, originality, copyright status and scientific appropriateness of any material produced with AI assistance.
• AI-generated content must not introduce fabricated references, inaccurate statements, misleading images or unacknowledged reused material.
• When AI tools are used in image analysis or computational pathology, their role should be described in the Methods section, including software name, version, provider, model type where relevant, input data, validation approach and human oversight.
Data availability, materials availability and reproducibility
Polish Journal of Pathology supports transparency, reproducibility and responsible data sharing. Authors are encouraged to make available the data, materials, protocols, code, and analytic methods necessary to understand, verify, and reproduce the findings whenever this is ethically, legally, and practically possible.
All original research articles should include a Data Availability Statement. This statement should indicate where the data supporting the study findings can be accessed, or explain why the data cannot be made publicly available. Where applicable, it should address underlying datasets, de-identified clinicopathological data, digital slide datasets, image-analysis outputs, code, algorithms, protocols, and other materials necessary to verify or reproduce the work.
For human tissue, FFPE blocks, tissue microarrays, cytology material, digital slides, molecular datasets, or patient-level clinicopathological data, availability may be limited by institutional, ethical, legal, or patient confidentiality considerations. Such limitations should be described transparently, and de-identified data should be shared only where this is compliant with applicable regulations and institutional approvals.
Conflict of interests
Authors of research articles should disclose in the Authors’ Declaration Form any financial arrangement they may have with a company whose product figures prominently in the submitted manuscript or with a company making a competing product. Examples of potential competing interests include employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, paid expert testimony, patent applications/registrations, and grants or other funding. Such information will not influence the editorial decision, but if the article is accepted for publication, the editors will usually discuss with the authors the manner in which such information is to be communicated to the reader.
The editors reserve the right to reject an article if the disclosed conflict of interest violates the journal's ethical principles.
A similar decision may be made if the editors detect an existing conflict of interest that the authors have not disclosed.
Because the essence of reviews and editorials is selection and interpretation of the literature, the Journal expects that authors of such articles will not have any financial interest in a company (or its competitor) that makes a product discussed in the article.
Journal policy requires that reviewers, associate editors, editors, and senior editors reveal in a letter to the Editor-in-Chief any relationships that they have that could be construed as causing a conflict of interest with regard to a manuscript under review. The letter should also include a statement of any financial relationships with commercial companies involved with a product under study.
Authors are required to provide disclosure information in two separate parts of the submission:
1. In the manuscript file, authors should include a brief declaration of interests. If there are no interests to declare, the statement should read: “Declarations of interest: none.”
2. In the separate Declaration of Interest form, authors should provide full details of any relevant interests. This form is retained as part of the journal’s official records. The information provided in the manuscript and in the form must be consistent.
Funding and role of the funder
The manuscript should include a statement describing the role of the funder or sponsor in study design, data collection, data analysis, interpretation, manuscript preparation, and the decision to submit the article for publication. If the funder had no such role, this should be stated explicitly. If medical writing, language editing, statistical support, image analysis, or other professional assistance was funded by a third party, this should be disclosed.
References
References should follow the Vancouver style. Authors are responsible for the accuracy, completeness and validity of all references.
References should be numbered consecutively in the order in which they first appear in the text. In-text citations should be indicated using Arabic numerals in square brackets, for example: [1], [2, 3], or [4–6].
Journal titles should be abbreviated according to Index Medicus / NLM. DOIs should be provided where available. Authors must ensure that all references are real, complete, correctly formatted and correctly cited in the text. AI-generated, fabricated or unverified references must not be included.
If a reference has more than six authors, list the first six authors followed by et al.
Personal communications, unpublished observations and unpublished data should be cited in the text only and should not be included in the reference list. Authors citing personal communications or unpublished data must obtain written permission from the source.
Books and book chapters should also be cited according to Vancouver style. For books, authors should provide the author(s), book title, edition if not the first, place of publication, publisher and year of publication. For chapters in edited books, authors should provide the chapter author(s), chapter title, editor(s), book title, edition if not the first, place of publication, publisher, year of publication and page range.
Reference examples
• Journal article
Smith CS, Aerts A, Saunderson P, Kawuma J, Kita E, Virmond M. Multidrug therapy for leprosy: a game changer on the path to elimination. Lancet Infect Dis. 2017;17:e293–e297.
• Journal article with more than six authors
Surname AB, Surname CD, Surname EF, Surname GH, Surname IJ, Surname KL, et al. Title of article. Abbreviated Journal Title. Year;volume:page range.
• Book
Kumar V, Abbas AK, Aster JC. Robbins and Cotran Pathologic Basis of Disease. 10th ed. Philadelphia: Elsevier; 2021.
• Chapter in an edited book
Weedon D. Disorders of pigmentation. In: Patterson JW, editor. Weedon’s Skin Pathology. 5th ed. Philadelphia: Elsevier; 2021. p. 309–346.
• Online source / database
World Health Organization. Leprosy – number of new leprosy cases [Internet]. Available from: https://apps.who.int/neglected_diseases/ntddata/leprosy/leprosy.html [accessed 29 Oct 2023].
• Standard / institutional document
International Organization for Standardization. ISO 13485:2016 Medical devices — Quality management systems — Requirements for regulatory purposes [Internet]. Available from: https://www.iso.org/standard/59752.html [accessed 10 Oct 2025].
The Polish Journal of Pathology is the official journal of the Polish Society of Pathologists. The journal publishes peer-reviewed articles relevant to diagnostic, academic, translational and experimental pathology, with particular emphasis on human pathology, precision diagnostics, molecular pathology, digital pathology, computational pathology, biomarker studies, immunohistochemistry, cytopathology, autopsy pathology, biobanking, pathology quality assurance, clinicopathological correlations and education in pathology.
The journal welcomes submissions from pathologists, laboratory medicine specialists, clinical researchers, translational scientists, molecular diagnosticians, bioinformaticians and other professionals working in pathology and diagnostic medicine. The Editors may suggest reclassification of a manuscript if another format is more appropriate.
| Article type | Abstract | Main text limit | References | Figures/Tables |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Original article | Structured or unstructured; up to 250 words | Up to 5,000 words | Up to 100 | Up to 8 |
| Review article | Unstructured; up to 250 words | Up to 7,000 words | Up to 150 | Up to 5 |
| Case report | Unstructured; up to 150 words | Up to 2,000 words | Up to 20 | Up to 3 |
| Short Communication (Short report / Technical note / Commentary / Letter to the Editor) | No abstract | Up to 1,000 words | Up to 10 | Up to 2 |
| Quiz | No abstract | Up to 800 words | Without references | Up to 3 |
Before submission: essential checklist:
• Confirm that the manuscript is original, has not been published previously in print or electronic format, and is not under consideration elsewhere.
• Prepare the manuscript in English, using either British or American spelling consistently throughout.
• Prepare the main manuscript file in .doc, .docx, or .rtf format, double-spaced, in 12-point font, with an unjustified right margin and adequate margins.
• Upload the title page, manuscript text, tables, figure legends, figures, and supplementary materials as required by the online submission system.
• Provide an abstract and keywords where required for the article type.
• Ensure that all references are cited in the text in the order in which they appear and that DOIs are provided where available.
• Include a cover letter and all required declarations: authorship, originality, conflicts of interest, funding, ethics approval, informed consent, data availability, and AI disclosure where applicable.
• For human tissue or clinical data, include ethics approval details or a clear statement explaining waiver/exemption or why approval was not required.
• For pathology images, whole-slide images, and clinical images, remove all patient identifiers, slide labels, barcodes, QR codes, accession numbers, and identifying metadata.
• Ensure that all figures meet image integrity requirements, and that original source image files are retained and can be provided to the Editors if requested.
• Obtain written permission for personal communications, unpublished data, identifiable patient information, and any previously published material reproduced or adapted in the manuscript.
Submission and editorial process
Manuscripts should be submitted through the online editorial system:
• www.pjp.termedia.pl/editorialsystem
Authors should not submit manuscripts by post or e-mail unless specifically instructed by the Editorial Office. Figures should be uploaded as separate files. Supplementary materials should be clearly labelled and referred to in the manuscript text.
Editorial assessment and peer review
The Editor will perform an initial assessment to determine whether the manuscript falls within the journal’s scope and meets basic editorial, ethical, and scientific requirements. Manuscripts may be rejected without external review if they are outside the scope of the journal, scientifically insufficient, incomplete, ethically problematic, or not prepared in accordance with the journal’s instructions.
Manuscripts considered suitable for review are evaluated by independent experts. Reviewers are expected to treat manuscripts as confidential documents, declare any potential conflicts of interest, and provide objective, constructive, and evidence-based assessments. Requests for citation of additional literature should be scientifically justified and should not be used to increase citations to the reviewer’s own work without clear relevance.
The journal aims to provide a decision after external peer review within approximately 6 weeks of submission. This timeframe is indicative and may vary depending on reviewer availability, manuscript complexity, the need for additional expert assessment, and the number of revision rounds required.
What to include in the cover letter?
• Full names, academic degrees, and affiliations of all authors.
• The corresponding author’s complete mailing address, telephone number, and e-mail address.
• A statement that the manuscript is original, has not been published previously, and is not under consideration elsewhere.
• A statement that all authors have approved the final version and agree to submission.
• A brief explanation of the importance and novelty of the work.
• Information on prior presentation at a meeting or conference, including meeting name, place and date.
• Information on financial support, grants, equipment or reagent support, medical writing assistance, statistical consultation, or image-analysis support.
• A statement regarding ethics approval, informed consent, data availability and use of AI-assisted technologies, where applicable.
• Name and affiliation of any statistical reviewer, bioinformatician, image-analysis specialist or methodological consultant who contributed to the work but does not meet authorship criteria.
How to prepare a manuscript?
General format
• Use clear scientific English. Authors not fully familiar with English usage are encouraged to seek language editing before submission; authors remain responsible for the content and accuracy of the manuscript.
• Use 12-point font, double spacing, margins of at least 2.5 cm and an unjustified right margin.
• Avoid unnecessary formatting, embedded images in Word files, automatic hyphenation, excessive footnotes and non-standard fonts.
Title page
• Concise and informative title.
• Full first and last names of all authors.
• Affiliations of all authors, including department, institution, city and country.
• ORCID identifiers for at least the first author.
• Corresponding author’s name, full address and e-mail address.
• Sources of support and grant numbers.
• Conflict of interest statement.
• Word count, number of tables, number of figures and number of supplementary files where requested.
Abstract, keywords and main text
Original articles should include a structured or unstructured abstract, depending on article type and journal requirements. Review articles and case reports should include concise unstructured abstracts where required. The abstract should present the purpose, methods, main findings, and conclusions without overstatement.
Up to five keywords should be provided, preferably corresponding to Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) or other widely used biomedical terminology.
Original articles should generally be organised as Introduction, Materials and methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusions, Acknowledgments, References, Tables and Figure legends. Review articles may be divided into appropriate sections and subsections. Case reports should include sufficient clinical, pathological, diagnostic and follow-up information to support the educational value of the case while preserving patient confidentiality. Abbreviations should be defined at first use in the abstract, main text, tables and figures. Measurements should be reported in SI units where applicable.
Authorship, contributors and author contributions
Each listed author must have contributed sufficiently to the intellectual content of the submission and must be able to take public responsibility for the work. Authorship should be based on substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work, acquisition of data, analysis or interpretation of data, drafting or critical revision of the manuscript, approval of the final version, and agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work.
The corresponding author is responsible for ensuring that all authors meet authorship criteria, that no eligible author has been omitted, and that all authors have approved the submitted version. Contributors who do not meet authorship criteria should be acknowledged, with their role and potential conflicts of interest disclosed where relevant.
The manuscript should include an Author Contributions statement. The journal encourages use of the CRediT taxonomy where appropriate, including roles such as conceptualization, methodology, investigation, formal analysis, data curation, writing - original draft, writing - review and editing, visualization, supervision, project administration and funding acquisition.
Changes in authorship after submission, including addition, removal or rearrangement of authors, require a written explanation and written agreement from all authors, including the author being added or removed. The Editors may request institutional confirmation in cases of dispute.
Ethics, consent and use of human material
Human tissue samples, archival material and clinicopathological data
Many manuscripts submitted to the Polish Journal of Pathology are based on biobanked material, archival diagnostic material including formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded tissue blocks, tissue microarrays, cytological specimens, digital slides, immunohistochemical stains, molecular pathology results, or retrospectively collected clinicopathological data.
Authors are responsible for ensuring that the use of the above-mentioned material and associated clinical data complies with applicable institutional, national, and international regulations. Where required, the manuscript should include a statement confirming approval by an appropriate institutional review board or ethics committee. The statement should provide the full name of the approving committee or institutional review board, the date of approval, and the approval or reference number.
If ethics approval was waived or deemed unnecessary, this should be clearly stated, together with the name of the institution or committee granting the waiver and the reason for the waiver. Where applicable, authors should state whether informed consent was obtained, waived or not required under relevant regulations. If consent was waived, the manuscript should identify the body or institution granting the waiver.
Patient privacy, rare diseases and identifiable cases
Even when direct identifiers are removed, some patients may remain identifiable because of rare diagnoses, unusual clinical courses, distinctive images, unique molecular findings or a combination of demographic and clinical details. Authors should exercise particular caution when reporting rare tumours, unusual syndromes, paediatric cases, hereditary cancer syndromes, rare molecular alterations or highly distinctive clinical-pathological presentations. In such cases, written informed consent for publication may be required even if names, initials and hospital numbers are removed. The Editors may request clarification regarding consent, anonymisation or ethics approval where patient identifiability is a concern.
Animal research
Manuscripts describing animal experiments must state that the study was conducted in accordance with applicable legal, institutional and ethical requirements for the care and use of laboratory animals. Authors should identify the approving animal ethics committee where applicable and provide the approval/reference number. The Methods section should include sufficient information on anaesthesia, analgesia, surgical procedures, welfare monitoring and humane endpoints where relevant.
Tables, figures, pathology images and image integrity
Tables
Tables should be numbered with Roman numerals in the order of citation in the text and supplied with concise descriptive titles. Abbreviations used in tables should be explained below the table. Tables should not duplicate information already presented in the text or figures.
Figure files and legends
• Figures and photographs should be numbered with Arabic numerals and uploaded as separate files.
• Preferred formats include .tif, .jpg and .png for raster images.
• Photographs, including pathology images and portraits, should generally be submitted at a minimum resolution of 600 dpi at the final publication size.
• Figures combining photographs with labels, arrows, diagrams, charts or other graphical elements should be submitted at a minimum resolution of 600 dpi at the final publication size.
• Pure line drawings or bitmapped line art should be submitted at a minimum resolution of 1200 dpi.
• Figures should not be embedded only in Microsoft Office files; separate high-quality source files should be provided.
• Multi-panel figures should be clearly labelled. If panels originate from different cases, stains, fields, magnifications, time points or experimental conditions, this must be clear from the layout and legend.
• Figure legends should provide sufficient diagnostic and technical information. For pathology images, legends should state the staining method. For immunohistochemistry, the antibody and clone should be provided where relevant. Scale bars are preferred to magnification factors, particularly when the exact scale is important.
Anonymisation of images and whole-slide images
All images, including histopathological, cytological, immunohistochemical, immunofluorescence, molecular pathology, gross pathology, radiological-pathological correlation images and whole-slide images, must be appropriately anonymised. Authors must remove patient names, initials, hospital numbers, accession numbers, specimen or block numbers, dates of birth, barcodes, QR codes, slide labels, direct identifiers and identifying metadata before submission.
Pathology images, including microscopic images, whole-slide images, X-rays, ultrasound images, laparoscopic images and similar diagnostic images, usually do not require separate consent for publication if they are fully anonymised and do not allow identification of the patient. However, if there is any reasonable possibility that a patient could be identified, authors must obtain appropriate written consent for publication.
Image integrity and acceptable processing
Submitted images must accurately represent the original observations. Authors must not modify images in a way that could misrepresent the underlying data, diagnostic features, staining pattern, morphology, signal intensity, localisation, distribution or interpretation. The journal may request clarification or the original source files if the image's integrity is uncertain.
Adjustments of brightness, contrast, colour balance, sharpness, background, thresholding, dynamic range, pseudocolouring, gamma correction or similar parameters are acceptable only when applied uniformly to the entire image and when they do not obscure, eliminate, enhance or create any specific feature. Any non-linear adjustment, pseudocolouring, thresholding or image-processing step that affects interpretation should be disclosed in the Methods section or figure legend.
The following practices are not acceptable:
• Adding, removing, moving, obscuring or selectively enhancing cells, tissue structures, staining signals, bands, labels or other image elements.
• Using image processing to alter the diagnostic impression or apparent intensity, distribution, or localisation of staining.
• Splicing images without clear demarcation and explanation.
• Reusing the same image or image region to represent different cases, markers, time points, magnifications, or experimental conditions without transparent disclosure.
• Presenting illustrative images as representative without an adequate basis.
Composite figures must be clearly assembled and described. If images from different cases, stains, fields, magnifications, time points, experimental conditions, or analytical outputs are combined into a single figure, this must be evident from the figure layout and legend. Boundaries between spliced or juxtaposed image parts should be clearly indicated when there is any possibility of ambiguity.
The Editors may request original, uncropped, unprocessed image files, whole-slide images, source microscopy files, acquisition metadata, or additional documentation at any stage of editorial assessment or after publication. Failure to provide source images when reasonably requested may affect editorial decisions.
Methodological requirements for specific study types
Diagnostic, prognostic, predictive and biomarker studies
Manuscripts reporting diagnostic, prognostic, predictive, molecular, immunohistochemical, or biomarker studies should provide sufficient methodological detail to allow readers to assess reliability and reproducibility. Where applicable, authors should describe:
• Patient selection and inclusion/exclusion criteria.
• Specimen type and fixation/processing methods.
• For immunohistochemistry, immunofluorescence, and other similar methods: antibody clone, supplier, dilution, platform, antigen retrieval method, detection system, and controls.
• Scoring method, cut-off values, interobserver assessment and adjudication procedures.
• Molecular testing method, platform, quality control criteria and reporting thresholds.
• Statistical methods, handling of missing data and correction for multiple testing where relevant.
• Validation cohort or external validation, where applicable.
Authors are encouraged to follow recognised reporting guidelines where relevant, including but not limited to STARD for diagnostic accuracy studies, REMARK for tumour marker prognostic studies, TRIPOD and AI-specific extensions for prediction models, CONSORT for clinical trials, PRISMA for systematic reviews and CARE for case reports.
Digital pathology and computational image analysis
Manuscripts involving digital pathology, whole-slide imaging, quantitative image analysis, machine learning, artificial intelligence or computational pathology should provide sufficient methodological detail to allow scientific assessment and reproducibility. Where applicable, authors should describe:
• Scanner type, manufacturer, scanning magnification or resolution and image format.
• Tissue type, staining method, number of cases and slides analysed.
• Inclusion and exclusion criteria for images or regions of interest.
• Annotation procedures, including who performed the annotations and whether they were reviewed by pathologists.
• Software, algorithms, model architecture, version numbers and relevant parameters.
• Training, validation and test datasets, including whether these datasets were independent.
• Performance metrics and statistical methods.
• Quality control procedures for digital slides and image analysis outputs.
For AI- or machine-learning-based studies, authors should clearly distinguish between exploratory, retrospective, validation and clinically implemented tools. Claims regarding diagnostic performance, clinical utility or generalisability should be supported by appropriate validation. Where patient-level data, digital slides, or image datasets cannot be made publicly available because of privacy, legal, institutional or ethical restrictions, this limitation should be stated explicitly in the Data Availability Statement.
Artificial intelligence-assisted technologies
The use of artificial intelligence-assisted technologies must be disclosed transparently. Authors should specify whether AI tools were used for language editing, data analysis, literature screening, image processing, figure preparation, graphical illustration or any other part of the work.
• AI tools, chatbots, image generators and similar systems cannot be listed as authors because they cannot take responsibility for the integrity, originality, accuracy and accountability required for authorship.
• AI-generated or AI-modified images must not be presented as original histopathological, cytological, immunohistochemical, molecular, radiological, gross pathology or experimental data.
• Any use of AI to create illustrative, schematic or graphical material must be clearly disclosed in the manuscript and figure legend.
• Authors remain fully responsible for checking the accuracy, originality, copyright status and scientific appropriateness of any material produced with AI assistance.
• AI-generated content must not introduce fabricated references, inaccurate statements, misleading images or unacknowledged reused material.
• When AI tools are used in image analysis or computational pathology, their role should be described in the Methods section, including software name, version, provider, model type where relevant, input data, validation approach and human oversight.
Data availability, materials availability and reproducibility
Polish Journal of Pathology supports transparency, reproducibility and responsible data sharing. Authors are encouraged to make available the data, materials, protocols, code, and analytic methods necessary to understand, verify, and reproduce the findings whenever this is ethically, legally, and practically possible.
All original research articles should include a Data Availability Statement. This statement should indicate where the data supporting the study findings can be accessed, or explain why the data cannot be made publicly available. Where applicable, it should address underlying datasets, de-identified clinicopathological data, digital slide datasets, image-analysis outputs, code, algorithms, protocols, and other materials necessary to verify or reproduce the work.
For human tissue, FFPE blocks, tissue microarrays, cytology material, digital slides, molecular datasets, or patient-level clinicopathological data, availability may be limited by institutional, ethical, legal, or patient confidentiality considerations. Such limitations should be described transparently, and de-identified data should be shared only where this is compliant with applicable regulations and institutional approvals.
Conflict of interests
Authors of research articles should disclose in the Authors’ Declaration Form any financial arrangement they may have with a company whose product figures prominently in the submitted manuscript or with a company making a competing product. Examples of potential competing interests include employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, paid expert testimony, patent applications/registrations, and grants or other funding. Such information will not influence the editorial decision, but if the article is accepted for publication, the editors will usually discuss with the authors the manner in which such information is to be communicated to the reader.
The editors reserve the right to reject an article if the disclosed conflict of interest violates the journal's ethical principles.
A similar decision may be made if the editors detect an existing conflict of interest that the authors have not disclosed.
Because the essence of reviews and editorials is selection and interpretation of the literature, the Journal expects that authors of such articles will not have any financial interest in a company (or its competitor) that makes a product discussed in the article.
Journal policy requires that reviewers, associate editors, editors, and senior editors reveal in a letter to the Editor-in-Chief any relationships that they have that could be construed as causing a conflict of interest with regard to a manuscript under review. The letter should also include a statement of any financial relationships with commercial companies involved with a product under study.
Authors are required to provide disclosure information in two separate parts of the submission:
1. In the manuscript file, authors should include a brief declaration of interests. If there are no interests to declare, the statement should read: “Declarations of interest: none.”
2. In the separate Declaration of Interest form, authors should provide full details of any relevant interests. This form is retained as part of the journal’s official records. The information provided in the manuscript and in the form must be consistent.
Funding and role of the funder
The manuscript should include a statement describing the role of the funder or sponsor in study design, data collection, data analysis, interpretation, manuscript preparation, and the decision to submit the article for publication. If the funder had no such role, this should be stated explicitly. If medical writing, language editing, statistical support, image analysis, or other professional assistance was funded by a third party, this should be disclosed.
References
References should follow the Vancouver style. Authors are responsible for the accuracy, completeness and validity of all references.
References should be numbered consecutively in the order in which they first appear in the text. In-text citations should be indicated using Arabic numerals in square brackets, for example: [1], [2, 3], or [4–6].
Journal titles should be abbreviated according to Index Medicus / NLM. DOIs should be provided where available. Authors must ensure that all references are real, complete, correctly formatted and correctly cited in the text. AI-generated, fabricated or unverified references must not be included.
If a reference has more than six authors, list the first six authors followed by et al.
Personal communications, unpublished observations and unpublished data should be cited in the text only and should not be included in the reference list. Authors citing personal communications or unpublished data must obtain written permission from the source.
Books and book chapters should also be cited according to Vancouver style. For books, authors should provide the author(s), book title, edition if not the first, place of publication, publisher and year of publication. For chapters in edited books, authors should provide the chapter author(s), chapter title, editor(s), book title, edition if not the first, place of publication, publisher, year of publication and page range.
Reference examples
• Journal article
Smith CS, Aerts A, Saunderson P, Kawuma J, Kita E, Virmond M. Multidrug therapy for leprosy: a game changer on the path to elimination. Lancet Infect Dis. 2017;17:e293–e297.
• Journal article with more than six authors
Surname AB, Surname CD, Surname EF, Surname GH, Surname IJ, Surname KL, et al. Title of article. Abbreviated Journal Title. Year;volume:page range.
• Book
Kumar V, Abbas AK, Aster JC. Robbins and Cotran Pathologic Basis of Disease. 10th ed. Philadelphia: Elsevier; 2021.
• Chapter in an edited book
Weedon D. Disorders of pigmentation. In: Patterson JW, editor. Weedon’s Skin Pathology. 5th ed. Philadelphia: Elsevier; 2021. p. 309–346.
• Online source / database
World Health Organization. Leprosy – number of new leprosy cases [Internet]. Available from: https://apps.who.int/neglected_diseases/ntddata/leprosy/leprosy.html [accessed 29 Oct 2023].
• Standard / institutional document
International Organization for Standardization. ISO 13485:2016 Medical devices — Quality management systems — Requirements for regulatory purposes [Internet]. Available from: https://www.iso.org/standard/59752.html [accessed 10 Oct 2025].
| eISSN: | 2084-9869 |
| ISSN: | 1233-9687 |
We process personal data collected when visiting the website. The function of obtaining information about users and their behavior is carried out by voluntarily entered information in forms and saving cookies in end devices. Data, including cookies, are used to provide services, improve the user experience and to analyze the traffic in accordance with the Privacy policy. Data are also collected and processed by Google Analytics tool (more).
You can change cookies settings in your browser. Restricted use of cookies in the browser configuration may affect some functionalities of the website.
You can change cookies settings in your browser. Restricted use of cookies in the browser configuration may affect some functionalities of the website.
