Investigación Clínica publishes Original Articles, Reviews, and Reports of Clinical Cases in both Spanish and  English that significantly contribute to advancing knowledge in human or animal biology. It also features an Editorial section and a ‘Letters to the Editor’ segment.

 

Manuscript submission

The manuscript (Word for Windows®), along with its corresponding checklist and accompanied by a letter of submission to the editor, must be sent by email to the following address: riclinicas@gmail.com.

Tables and figures, if any, should be placed at the end of the work with their corresponding captions. In addition to the manuscript, the following may be included: the names of three potential referees and their respective institutional and email addresses. The Editorial Committee reserves the right to decide whether to use some of the reviewers suggested. All correspondence, including the Referees’ opinions, requirements arising from the review  of the work, and notification of the Editorial Committee’s decision, will be communicated via email. Follow-up correspondence regarding the work should include the journal-assigned code in the reception letter.

 

Cover letter

The manuscript must be accompanied by a letter, addressed to the Editor, signed by all authors, stating that they have actively participated in the execution of the work, that they have not used “Artificial Intelligence” for its preparation, that it has not been previously published, that they are aware it is being sent to Investigación Clínica for publication, and that it has not been simultaneously submitted to another journal for consideration.

Authorship must be based on the following criteria:

1) Substantial contribution involves the conception and design of the  study, data collection, or analysis and  interpretation; 2) Drafting or critically reviewing the manuscript; and 3) Approving the final version for publication. Obtaining funding, collecting data, or supervising the research group, by themselves, do not justify authorship. Group members who do  not  meet the authorship criteria should be acknowledged in the Acknowledgments section. Once the work has been accepted, neither the number nor the order of authors may be changed. Before the references, it is essential to include: funding, each author’s contribution, their ORCID number, and a declaration of any conflicts of interest.

 

System of arbitration

The arbitration process will be carried out electronically. All submissions will be reviewed by the journal’s Editorial Committee, which will decide whether to send them for peer review or reject them for failing to meet editorial guidelines, exceeding the editorial scope, or failing to comply with established scientific and methodological quality standards. The corresponding author will receive a confirmation letter with a numerical code.

The arbitration of Original Works and Reports of Cases will be conducted by two experts in the field, while reviews will be handled by only one. Referees will have up to two months to submit their responses. If  the  referees’  evaluations  are  consistent, the Editorial Committee may make a decision; if they differ, a third referee’s evaluation will be sought and, if needed, additional reviews may be requested. The journal uses a double-blind peer-review process, keeping referees’ and authors’ identities strictly confidential.  Authors will receive the manuscript review report whether revisions are needed or the work is rejected. Authors have two months to re- spond to the referees’ recommendations; after that, the work will be either rejected or considered for readmission as new.

 

Publication costs. All accepted works will require an editorial management fee, payable upon publication.

 

Editorial Guidelines

Papers must be double-spaced with wide margins, page numbers, written in “Word for Windows®,” and preferably in “Times New Roman 12.”

Original Articles, Reviews, and Case Reports must be original contributions of substantial importance to the advancement of knowledge on the subject. The first page should include:

The title of the work must start with a capital letter and should not contain abbreviations. Then, place the first name, the initial of the second name, and the full surname of each author. If an author has two surnames, separate them with a hyphen. Each author’s name should be followed by numerical superscripts indicating their institutional affiliations. Do not repeat names from the same institution; only use the corresponding superscript. Do not include professional titles.

A short title in the original language of the work should not exceed 75 characters.

Keywords. On a separate line, list three to six keywords in both Spanish and English. It is recommended to include words that appear in the summary and avoid those found in the title. For Spanish articles, use terms from the Descriptors in Health Sciences (DeCS) list, and for English, use MeSH (Medical Subject Headings). Both are accessible online: https://decs. bvsalud.org/es/ and meshb.nlm.nih.gov.

Author of correspondence. Include the full name without academic titles, the institutional address, city, country, phone number, and email address.

Next, a summary  will  be  provided in Spanish, and the title and abstract in English. Authors without sufficient command of American English should seek assistance from an advisor. The journal reserves the right to reject submissions that require extensive language corrections.

The original articles will include a summary in both Spanish and English, an introduction, materials and methods (or patients and methods if the work involves human subjects), results, discussion, tables, figures, acknowledgments, and references. The paper must end with a conclusion, which should not be written as a separate section.

The summary should be no longer than 250 words and clearly outline the objectives, methodology, original findings, and conclusions based on the presented results. It  should  not include  references or have a specific structure. Abbreviations should be avoided; if necessary, they must be defined when first used.

The abstract should be written in American English and adhere to the same guidelines as the Spanish summary. Both the summary and the abstract must contain the same information;  there  should be no discrepancies in content.

Introduction. It should provide background and general information on the study topic, address controversial findings, pose relevant questions, highlight your own contributions, and conclude with the main objective of the research.

Materials and Methods or Patients and Methods. This section should describe the type and design of the study, the characteristics and size of the sample, its representativeness, and the inclusion and exclusion criteria. For studies involving human subjects, informed consent and approval from the Ethics Committee of the institution where the research was conducted, or from the relevant institution authorized to grant such approval, must be included, and the guidelines of the 1975 Declaration of Helsinki, revised in 2024, must be followed. The use of initials or medical record numbers should be avoided. Photographs of the patient’s face will not be accepted without their written consent, and the patient’s identity and dignity must be protected by avoiding any identifying features. Studies involving animals must also comply with the applicable Code of Ethics and established international standards for the use, care, and treatment of laboratory animals. Procedures should be described in the past tense and in sufficient detail to enable replication of the work. Non-original methods must be properly cited. The equipment and reagents used must include the company name and the supplier’s country.

Statistical analysis. Authors should specify the statistical software used, including the version, and describe the statistical tests performed. It is also advisable to mention the significance level and, if relevant, the confidence intervals.

Results should be presented in the past tense and follow a logical order throughout the text, tables, and figures. Only key observations should be emphasized. Laboratory values and units must be expressed in the International System of Units (SI). Do not repeat information shown in the figures or tables within the text; simply state it. Tables and figures should be presented on separate pages. Tables must be submitted in an editable format.

Discussion. Summarize the main findings of the study, compare the results with others in the literature, highlight the contributions and strengths, and acknowledge the limitations of the work. Also, suggest guidelines for future research. The paper’s final section should be a conclusion that aligns with the results and should not be written as a separate section.

References. Limit to a  maximum of 50 references for original articles and 100 for narrative and systematic reviews or meta-analyses. It is recommended that you carefully review the latest issue of the journal (http://sites.google.com/site/revistainvestigacionesclinicas) as a guide for preparing the manuscript.

Narrative reviews must be written by experts in the field and include the author’s contributions, either in the references or within a discussion of the topic. The maximum number of authors is four. Reviews that are simply bibliographic descriptions without analysis will not be accepted. The structure of the reviews is flexible, though it is recommended to divide them into sections. Systematic reviews and meta-analyses must follow the international PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) guidelines or similar standards.

Case reports emphasize rare clinical cases in medical practice. They should include a brief introduction to the pathology being discussed, a case description, and a discussion supported by relevant references. Limit the discussion to the most important aspects of the case.

The Editorial will be presented by a member of the journal’s Editorial Committee or by a guest, proposed by this group and selected from among the regular contributors.

Letters to the editor should comment on recent journal publications and, if possible, should not exceed two pages, including references.

Tables. Each must fit on one page and be numbered with Arabic numerals. They should include a centered clear, self-explanatory title following the Table number. Do not use acronyms, abbreviations, or initialisms in the titles. Columns should not be separated by lines. Notes clarifying information in the table body should be placed at the bottom, preceded by conventional symbols. Each symbol should appear in the corresponding cell of the table and be linked to the explanatory note. These notes should be understandable without referring to the text. Therefore, all abbreviations used should be explained, the type of statistical analysis applied should be specified, and the groups related to the statistical significance (p) should be indicated.

The journal does not accept the phrase “Source of information” when referring to results presented in the same article, unless they come from other material. If the article is written in Spanish, decimal numbers should be separated by a comma, and if it is written in English, by a period. A maximum of six tables and six figures will be accepted.

Figures. Each figure must be submitted as a separate file, indicating the software used to create it (e.g., GraphPad Prism®) and numbered consecutively with Arabic numerals in the order they appear in the text. The font type and size should be consistent, and the image should have a minimum resolution of 300 dpi in JPG or TIFF format, with adequate contrast for proper viewing. Legends must be submitted separately and include enough information to  interpret them without referencing the text. For radiographic images, no legends or markings that could identify the patient are allowed.

Photographs should be in black-and-white or color, with sufficient contrast for reproduction, in JPG or TIFF format, and must be at least 600 dpi. For electron micrographs, extreme care is required to ensure the clarity of the reported findings, which must be marked with clearly distinguishable symbols. The magnification used must also be indicated; preferably, include a scale bar to show the corresponding measurement (microns, nanometers, etc.). Captions should not be embedded in the  photograph  and  must  appear  on a separate page; they should be detailed enough that the viewer does not need to refer to the main text. Photographs and figures from other publications will not be accepted without proper authorization.

References. All references must be included in the text with a superscript number, without parentheses, and cited in the order they appear, in accordance with the standards of the international “Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals,” updated in January 2025 (http:// www.icmje.org). This means the surname should be in capital letters, followed by the first name initials in capital letters, without periods. When a reference has up to six authors, list all authors. If there are more, only the first six should be cited, followed by the abbreviation “et al.” or “y col.”, depending on the language. The authors’ names should be in bold and separated by commas. Next, include the full title of the work and the abbreviated journal name per Index Medicus (http://www.nlm.nih.gov), followed by the year of publication, volume, and first and last page numbers, separated by a hyphen. Each reference must then include the DOI (Digital Object Identifier). If the article does not have a DOI, provide the document URL (Uniform Resource Locator). The DOI or URL must be complete and verifiable. Unpublished observations, personal communications, or works submitted for publication are not acceptable as references; however, they can be cited in parentheses within the text. If the author is an organization, list the organization’s name as the responsible party.

 

Examples:

Periodical publications: Jaspe RC, Sulbaran Y, Hidalgo M, Loureiro CL, Moros ZC, Garzaro D, et al. A simple method for detecting mutations in amino acid 452 of the Spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 using restriction enzyme analysis. Invest Clin. 2021; 62(4): 371-377. https://doi.org/10.22209/IC.v62n4a07.

Books: Hall JE, Guyton AC.  Guyton  and  Hall  textbook  of  medical  physiology.   13th ed. Philadelphia: Elsevier; 2016. https://doi.o rg/10.1016/C2015-0-00477-0.

Book Chapter: Kumar V, Abbas AK, Aster JC. Robbins and Cotran pathologic basis of disease. 9th ed. Philadelphia: Elsevier; 2015. Chapter 7, Neoplasia. https://doi.org/ 10.1016/B978-1-4557-7016-2.00007-0 .

De  León  DD,  Pinney  SE.  Permanent

Neonatal Diabetes Mellitus. 2025. In: Adam MP, Bick S, Mirzaa GM, Pagon RA, Wallace SE, Amemiya A, editors. GeneReviews ® [Internet]. Seattle (WA): University of Washington, Seattle; 1993–2026. Available at: https:// www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK1116/

 

Conference Proceedings:

Stepenka V, Rivas Y, Casal J, Gutiérrez R, Ryder E, Florez H. Metabolic benefits of lifestyle intervention in the clinical setting: a pilot study in Latinos with prediabetes from Venezuela, South America. In: 70th Scientific Sessions of the American Diabetes Association; 2010 Jun 25‑29; Orlando, USA. If the proceedings were published in a book or journal supplement, it is added after the name of the congress, next to the pages or identifier if the abstract appears published in a supplement with pagination or DOI.

Thesis: León NI. Characterization of isolates of the Sporothrix spp. complex from different regions of Venezuela [Master ‘s Thesis]. Caracas: IVIC; 2013. Available from: https://ivic.gob.ve/biblioteca/.

Electronic journal: Calvo B, Melo A, Perozo A, Hernández M, Francisco E, Hagen F, et al. First report of Candida auris in America: clinical and microbiological aspects of 18 episodes of candidaemia. J Infect. 2016;  73(4):369-374 [ cited 2017

February 10 ]. http://doi.org/10.1016/j. inf.2016.07.008. Available from: URL

Erratum: If the publication contains an erratum affecting critical information, it is recommended to include both references in the list (original and erratum). If only the correction is consulted, only the erratum is cited. Example:

García M, López R, Pérez J. Impact of COVID-19 on  the  mental  health of university students. Rev Salud Acad. 2023;15(2):123-30.      http://doi.org/doi

:10.1234/rsa.2023.5678. Erratum in: García M, López R, Pérez J. Impact of COVID-19 on the mental health of university students. Rev Salud Acad. 2023;15(3):210. https://doi. org/10.1234/rsa.2023.5678e.

Policy on preprints as references

The journal permits  citing  preprints as long as their non-peer-reviewed status is clearly indicated. Authors need to include the permanent link (DOI or URL) and the date accessed. It is advised that preprints serve as supplementary references rather than replacing evidence published in peer- reviewed scientific journals.

Anti-plagiarism policy

To ensure the ethical and transparent publication of scientific work, this journal adheres to a strict policy on plagiarism and self-plagiarism. All submitted manuscripts will be checked with specialized plagiarism detection software.

The journal Investigación Clínica states that the ethical integrity of published works rests exclusively with their authors.

In accordance with the international editorial standards of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) (https://publicationethics.org/) and the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) (www.icmje. org), the journal requires that retractions be published prominently and permanently on a numbered page within the editorial system or table of contents to ensure proper indexing. The retraction notice will include the title of the original article, be digitally linked to the manuscript, and clearly identify the article as retracted in all its versions (abstract, full text, and PDF). The retraction text will state the reason for the retraction and include the full reference to the affected article. Retracted articles will remain publicly accessible and be unmistakably marked as retracted. Requests for retractions can come from the authors, editors, or the corresponding institution.

 

Checklist

• A letter signed by all authors, confirming the corresponding author, each author’s contribution to the work, and stating that it has not been published before and is not being submitted to another journal.
• Pages numbered sequentially. 
• Title in Spanish.
• Title in English.
• Short title in the main language of the
• List of authors with full names, excluding professional
• Provide a summary in both English and Spanish, not exceeding 250 words, including an introduction, basic procedures, results, and a conclusion.
• Brief introduction, referring to the subject of study.
• Material and Methods or Patients and Methods, described clearly and with proper references.
• Specification of the statistical analysis when
• Results are presented clearly and in a logical order without discussing the
• Discussion based on the findings
• References listed in order of appearance, using superscripts without parentheses, cited in the text and in accordance with the journal’s
• Personal communications and conference presentations are not accepted if abstracts have not been
• Tables numbered with Arabic numerals, with notes at the
• The illustrations and photographs meet the journal’s
• Legends for the illustrations, figures, and photographs are on separate
• All authors’ORCID
• Source of
• Authors’ involvement in the
• Conflicts of interest