--- name: journal-of-hepatology description: Use when targeting Journal of Hepatology or deciding whether a liver-disease study fits this venue. Encodes the journal's fit, the EASL clinical-and-translational evidence bar, reporting-guideline and registration requirements, Elsevier/EASL house style, official-submission re-check, and desk-reject heuristics. Venue-fit aid only, not clinical advice. --- # Journal of Hepatology (journal-of-hepatology) ## Journal positioning Journal of Hepatology is the flagship journal of the European Association for the Study of the Liver (EASL), publishing high-impact clinical, translational, and basic science across the breadth of hepatology — viral, metabolic (MASLD/MASH), alcohol-related and autoimmune liver disease, cirrhosis and portal hypertension, acute and acute-on-chronic liver failure, hepatocellular and biliary cancers, and liver transplantation. It serves an international hepatology readership and a European clinical-guideline community, and expects work that advances mechanistic understanding or changes how liver disease is diagnosed, staged, or managed; descriptive single-center series and incremental confirmatory studies without a clear conceptual or practice advance are a weak fit. This skill is a **fit / venue-selection / re-framing** aid; it is not clinical or regulatory advice and does not replace the journal's current instructions for authors. Before submitting, re-check the live Journal of Hepatology author instructions. ## When to trigger - The author names Journal of Hepatology for a clinical, translational, or basic liver-disease study and wants a fit/framing check. - A liver study must be re-framed around a mechanistic insight or a guideline-relevant clinical advance for an EASL/European readership. - The author is choosing between Journal of Hepatology (EASL), Hepatology (AASLD), and a general GI or general-medicine venue. - The author needs the journal's reporting-guideline, registration, and desk-reject expectations for hepatology. ## Scope & topic fit - Viral hepatitis (HBV, HCV, HDV) and emerging therapies, cure strategies, and elimination-relevant clinical research. - Metabolic and steatotic liver disease (MASLD/MASH), alcohol-related liver disease, and their fibrosis/cirrhosis natural history and trials. - Cirrhosis, portal hypertension, decompensation, and acute-on-chronic liver failure — pathophysiology, biomarkers, and outcome studies. - Hepatocellular carcinoma and cholangiocarcinoma — surveillance, staging, systemic and locoregional therapy with hepatology-relevant endpoints. - Autoimmune and cholestatic liver disease (AIH, PBC, PSC) and liver transplantation: selection, immunosuppression, and graft/patient outcomes. - Translational and basic hepatobiliary science (immunology, fibrogenesis, regeneration, omics) with clear disease relevance. ## Method & evidence bar - Clinical studies must be adequately powered with prespecified, clinically meaningful endpoints; surrogate or biomarker endpoints (e.g., fibrosis stage, viral suppression) need validation and justification. - The applicable reporting guideline must be followed and its checklist supplied: CONSORT for trials, STROBE for observational studies, PRISMA for systematic reviews, STARD for diagnostic/biomarker accuracy. - Interventional trials require prospective registration; the registration number and protocol/statistical-analysis plan are expected. - Translational and basic work needs rigorous controls, adequate replication, and validation in human samples or disease-relevant models, not a single cell line or model. - Diagnostic and prognostic biomarker claims (non-invasive fibrosis tests, HCC markers) require an independent validation cohort and comparison against an accepted reference standard. - Observational and registry analyses must address confounding, selection, and competing risks (e.g., liver-related death vs. transplant); causal language must match the design. ## Structure & house style - EASL/Elsevier format with a structured abstract and a concise lay/impact summary where required; re-check current article types (Research Article, Short Communication, etc.) and limits on the live guide. - The introduction frames a focused hepatology question and its mechanistic or clinical importance; the discussion states the management or guideline implication and aligns terminology with current EASL nomenclature (e.g., MASLD/MASH). - Figures and tables follow journal statistical-reporting standards; a CONSORT/STROBE/PRISMA flow diagram is expected where applicable. - Supplements carry the protocol, full statistical methods, extended characterization, and additional cohorts/analyses. ## Official-submission checklist - Before giving submission-ready advice, read `../../resources/source-basis.md` and `../../resources/official-source-map.md`; start from the ICMJE/EQUATOR and EASL anchors, then cite the current Journal of Hepatology page you checked. - Search the live site for "Journal of Hepatology guide for authors" and follow the current Elsevier/EASL version. - Re-check article types, word/reference/figure limits, structured-abstract and impact-summary format, and statistical-reporting requirements. - Confirm trial registration, the reporting checklist (CONSORT/STROBE/PRISMA/STARD), data-sharing statement, and protocol/SAP submission. - Re-check ethics-committee approval and consent, biobank/genetic-data governance, ICMJE authorship and conflict-of-interest disclosure, funding, and AI-use disclosure. - If the live official instructions conflict with this skill, the official instructions win. ## Pre-submission self-check - [ ] The study answers a focused hepatology question with a clear mechanistic insight or management/guideline implication. - [ ] Endpoints are prespecified and clinically meaningful; surrogate/biomarker endpoints are validated and justified. - [ ] The correct reporting checklist (CONSORT/STROBE/PRISMA/STARD) is completed and attached. - [ ] Trials are prospectively registered with the number in the manuscript; protocol/SAP provided. - [ ] Translational claims are validated in human samples or disease-relevant models with adequate controls and replication. - [ ] Ethics/consent, ICMJE disclosures, and a data-sharing statement are prepared; nomenclature follows current EASL terms. ## Common desk-reject triggers - Descriptive single-center series or registry slices with no mechanistic or practice advance and limited generalizability. - Biomarker or non-invasive-test studies without an independent validation cohort or an accepted reference standard. - Translational claims resting on one model or cell line with no human validation and weak controls. - Missing trial registration, protocol, or the required reporting checklist; outdated steatotic-liver-disease nomenclature. - Observational analyses with inadequate confounding/competing-risk handling or overstated causal claims. - Narrow local-interest topic better served by a subspecialty GI, transplant, or general-medicine venue. ## Re-routing decision - North-American/AASLD audience emphasis or AASLD-guideline framing → `hepatology`. - Luminal-GI, endoscopy, or broad practice-relevant GI/hepatology with a US clinical readership → `american-journal-of-gastroenterology`. - HCC/cholangiocarcinoma study dominated by a systemic-oncology endpoint → `jama-oncology` / `annals-of-oncology`. - Practice-changing, broadly significant trial → general medicine (`jama` / NEJM / The Lancet in the natural-science bundle). - Pure basic hepatobiliary cell/molecular mechanism with no disease translation → a basic-science venue in the natural-science bundle. ## Output format ```text [Fit] High / Medium / Low (one-line reason) [Target] Journal of Hepatology (EASL) [Hepatology tags] <2–3 closest topics, e.g. MASH trial, HCC surveillance, ACLF biomarker> [Study design / reporting guideline] [Method/evidence] [Top risk] [Official items to re-check]
[Re-route suggestion] ```