About the Journal

Focus and Scope

The Heart Surgery Forum® is an international peer-reviewed, open access journal seeking original investigative and clinical work on any subject germane to the science or practice of modern cardiac care. The HSF publishes original scientific reports, collective reviews, case reports, editorials, and letters to the editor. New manuscripts are reviewed by reviewers for originality, content, relevancy and adherence to scientific principles in a double-blind process. The HSF features a streamlined submission and peer review process with an anticipated completion time of 30 to 60 days from the date of receipt of the original manuscript. Authors are encouraged to submit full color images and video that will be included in the web version of the journal at no charge.

Editor-in-Chief Igor Rudez, MD, PhD

Department of Cardiac and Transplant Surgery
Dubrava University Hospital
Zagreb, Croatia

Founder and Editor-in-Chief Emeritus Mark M. Levinson, MD
Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery
Central Washington Hospital
Wenatchee, WA, US

Assistant Editors

Davor Baric, MD, PhD
Dubrava University Hospital
Zagreb, Croatia

Ben Bidstrup, FRACS, FRCSEd
Pindara Gold Coast Hospital
Terranora NSW, Australia

Daniel Unic, MD, PhD
Dubrava University Hospital
Zagreb, Croatia

Song Wan, MD, PhD, FRCS
The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Shatin, NT, Hong Kong, China

Editorial Board
Lishan Aklog, MD
St. Joseph’s Medical Center
Phoenix, Arizona, USA

John C. Alexander, MD
Evanston NW Healthcare
Evanston, Illinois, USA

Rui M. S. Almeida
Parana’s West State University
Cascavel, Brazil

Tohru Asai, MD
Shiga University
Otsu, Japan

Roberto Battellini, MD
Hospital Italiano
Buenos Aires, Argentina

William E. Cohn, MD
Texas Heart Institute
Houston, Texas, USA

Reddy Dandolu, MD
University of Nevada School of Medicine
Las Vegas, Nevada, USA

Michael S. Firstenberg, MD
Summa Akron City Hospital
Akron, Ohio, USA

Jan D. Galla, MD, PhD
Teterboro Aviation Medical Services
Teterboro, New Jersey, USA

Changqing Gao, MD
PLA General Hospital
Beijing City, China

Vassilios Gulielmos, MD
Geniki Kliniki Thessaloniki
Thessaloniki, Greece

Philip J. Hess, Jr., MD
University of Florida Hospital
Gainesville, Florida, USA

Hitoshi Hirose, MD
Hahnemann University Hospital
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA

Mehmet Kaplan, MD
Siyami Ersek Thoracic and
Cardiovascular Surgery Center
Istanbul, Turkey

Michael Knaut, MD
Heart Center Dresden
Dresden, Germany

Tomas D. Martin, MD
University of Florida Hospital
Gainesville, Florida, USA

John Murkin, MD, FRCPC
London Health Sciences Centre
London, Ontario, Canada

Oztekin Oto, MD
Dokuz Eylul University Hospital
Izmir, Turkey

John Pym, MD
Aria Health
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA

Abdul-Rahman M. Ramzisham, MD
Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia Medical Centre
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Goya V. Raikar, MD
Oklahoma Heart Hospital Physicians
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, USA

Edward P. Raines, MD
BryanLGH Heart Institute
Lincoln, Nebraska, USA

Lucas Ramirez-Gil, MD
Universidad de Antioquia
Medellin, Columbia

Hermann Reichenspurner, MD, PhD
University Hospital Eppendorf
Hamburg, Germany

Friedrich-Christian Riess, MD
Albertinen Hospital Hamburg
Hamburg, Germany

Mattew A. Romano, MD
University of Michigan Health System
Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA

Donald Ross, MD
The Royal North Shore Hospital
Sydney, Australia

Igor Rudez, MD, PhD
Dubrava University Hospital
Zagreb, Croatia

Hossein Shayan, MD
San Antonio Community Hospital
Upland, California, USA

Prasanna Simha, MBBS, MS
Sri Jayadeva Institute of Cardiology
Bangalore, India

Curt Tribble, MD
University of Virginia
Charlottesville, VA, USA

Christina Vassileva, MD
Southern Illinois University
School of Medicine
Springfield, Illinois, USA

Murali P. Vettath, DNB, MCh
MIMS Institute of Cardiac Sciences
Kozhikode, Kerala, India

Grayson H. Wheatley III, MD
Arizona Heart Institute
Phoenix, Arizona, USA

Leora T. Yarboro, MD
University of Virginia
Charlottesville, Virginia, USA

Vipin Zamvar, MD
Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh
Edinburgh, UK

Peer Review Process

The Heart Surgery Forum® provides a double-blind peer review process. Each manuscript will be assigned a unique ID number, with all authors' names and institutions removed for peer review.

All articles submitted will undergo extensive, quality review by our international team. The average time to first decision is two weeks. Articles accepted for publication will appear online in 60 days or less, and later in print.

When a manuscript is submitted, the authors are encouraged to provide a list of suggested reviewers, persons without conflict or bias and with the appropriate expertise to provide a fair and substantive review of the submission. Of course, the editor is not obliged to select a name from that list.

Physicians from your own department and institution would be considered to have a bias and should therefore not be listed as suggested reviewers. Physicians, who have published articles in the subject matter of the submission, such as those listed in your list of references, may be good candidates for a list of suggested reviewers.

Authors will be sent any questions or comments generated during peer review via our online submission and review portal. A prompt response to these questions is necessary to ensure timely publication. Pertinent comments by the Editorial Board along with the authors responses may be printed in the final publication.

When the reviewers request revisions to the manuscript, the authors must make the necessary changes before publication. Those changes will be reviewed to determine if the authors have sufficiently addressed their concerns. Manuscripts deemed to be inadequately revised will be rejected. The Editor-in-Chief has the final say as to publication.

Publication of your submission is conditional upon confirmation of Author Agreement and Copyright Transfer Statement, which transfers to Forum Multimedia Publishing, L.L.C., a subsidiary of Carden Jennings Publishing Co., Ltd., the exclusive rights to print and distribute the author(s) work in all media forms. A publication fee, via PayPal, is required before final publication.

Publication Frequency

The Heart Surgery Forum will publish individual articles as soon as they have completed the production process and the publication fee has been received. Articles will be added to the current volume's Table of Contents. The average time from submission to publication is 60 days.

High Quality Review with Rapid Publication

Beginning with Volume 20, Issue 1, all articles published in The Heart Surgery Forum® will be freely available online. By becoming open access, the HSF provides the most up-to-date research and clinical information to the largest global community of heart specialists.

For authors, we provide more readers, more citations, and more recognition of your work.

For readers, we offer the latest state-of-the-art techniques and clinical research in half of the time of most print journals.

Once accepted, each article will be published online immediately after its processed through production. In addition, every article will be published in the HSF print journal, which is available to subscribers for an additional fee.

The Heart Surgery Forum® offers many unique advantages:

Indexed in MEDLINE/PubMed, ISI, EMBASE, SciSearch, Google Scholar
Average time to first decision of two weeks
Submission to publication 60 days or less
Constructive, stringent double-blinded, peer review
No color figure charges
Low publication fee once accepted (1/2 cost of most)

Journal History

In 1997, The Heart Surgery Forum (HSF) was inaugurated by Mark M. Levinson, MD, as a multimedia scientific publication, which communicated over the new “Information Highway” known as the Web. The HSF began as a “labor of love” for heart surgeons as a dynamic tool for the betterment of themselves and their patients. Included in the original HSF Web site was a novel means to present interesting cases using color photos, movies, text and graphics, which was groundbreaking at that time.

Today, the HSF continues as one of the leading cardiothoracic resources in more than 182 countries. Published first online and then in print, the HSF publishes original scientific reports, collective reviews, case reports, editorials, and letters to the editor on the latest advances and studies in cardiac care.

Now open access and free to the world for the first time, the HSF provides the most up-to-date research and clinical information to the largest global community of heart specialists. For authors, we provide more readers, more citations, and more recognition of your work. For readers, we offer the latest state-of-the-art techniques and clinical research in half of the time of most print journals.