Anesthesiology (anesthesiology)

Journal positioning

Anesthesiology is the flagship journal of the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA), publishing clinical and translational research across anesthesiology, perioperative medicine, pain medicine, and critical care — anesthetic pharmacology and mechanism, perioperative outcomes, patient safety, regional and pain management, and peri-operative organ protection. Its defining expectation is a rigorous, clinically meaningful advance in perioperative or anesthetic care, or a mechanistic insight into anesthetic action and perioperative physiology, not an underpowered single-center trial, a descriptive case series, or a basic experiment with no perioperative anchor. The journal places strong emphasis on rigorous perioperative-trial reporting — prespecified outcomes, registration, and analysis matched to design. 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 Anesthesiology author instructions.

When to trigger

• The author names Anesthesiology for an anesthesiology, perioperative, pain, or anesthesia-related critical-care study and wants a fit/framing check.
• A perioperative study must be re-framed around a patient-centered perioperative outcome or an anesthetic-mechanism question.
• The author is choosing between Anesthesiology, a surgical journal, and a critical-care or pain-specialty venue.
• The author needs the journal's perioperative-trial reporting, registration, and translational-study expectations.

Scope & topic fit

• Perioperative clinical trials and outcomes: anesthetic technique, hemodynamic management, and postoperative complications/mortality.
• Anesthetic pharmacology and mechanism: drug action, depth-of-anesthesia, and neurophysiology of consciousness and analgesia.
• Patient safety, monitoring, and quality in the perioperative period.
• Regional anesthesia, acute and chronic pain medicine, and analgesic outcome studies.
• Perioperative organ protection and critical care related to surgery and anesthesia.
• Translational and animal studies of anesthetic mechanism, neurotoxicity, or organ injury with perioperative relevance.

Method & evidence bar

• Perioperative trials must be adequately powered with prespecified, patient-centered outcomes; trials require prospective registration and the registration number, with protocol/SAP and analysis matched to design.
• The applicable reporting guideline and checklist are expected: CONSORT for trials, STROBE for observational work, PRISMA for systematic reviews, ARRIVE for animal studies.
• Composite and surrogate perioperative endpoints need justification; multiplicity and subgroup analyses must be prespecified and handled appropriately.
• Observational perioperative analyses must address confounding by indication, selection and immortal-time bias, and missing data; causal language must match the design.
• Translational/animal anesthetic studies need controls, blinding/randomization, replication, and dosing/model validation anchored to perioperative relevance.
• Effect estimates need confidence intervals and absolute as well as relative measures.

Structure & house style

• ASA format with a structured abstract and an editor's/clinical-context or "what we know / what this adds" statement; re-check current article types (Clinical Science, Perioperative Medicine, etc.) and limits on the live guide.
• The introduction frames the perioperative or mechanistic gap; the discussion states the perioperative-care implication and bounds overreach.
• A CONSORT/STROBE/PRISMA flow diagram is expected for the relevant design; animal work reports ARRIVE-aligned detail.
• Tables/figures follow the journal's statistical-reporting standards; a supplement carries the protocol/SAP, full statistical methods, and additional 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 ASA anchors, then cite the current Anesthesiology page you checked.
• Search the live site for "Anesthesiology ASA instructions for authors" and follow the current version.
• Re-check article types, abstract and clinical-context format, and word/figure/reference limits.
• Confirm trial registration, the reporting checklist (CONSORT/STROBE/PRISMA/ARRIVE), data/code-availability, and protocol/SAP submission with prespecified analysis.
• Re-check IRB/ethics and consent, animal-care/IACUC approval, 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 delivers a clinically meaningful perioperative advance or an anesthetic-mechanism insight.
• Perioperative outcomes are prespecified and powered; trials are registered with the number and SAP.
• The correct reporting checklist (CONSORT/STROBE/PRISMA/ARRIVE) is completed and attached.
• Multiplicity, subgroups, and composite/surrogate endpoints are prespecified and justified.
• Observational analyses address confounding by indication and immortal-time/selection bias.
• IRB/consent, IACUC (if animal), ICMJE disclosures, and a data-availability statement are prepared.

Common desk-reject triggers

• Underpowered single-center perioperative trial with no prespecified analysis or registration.
• Observational analyses with confounding by indication and overstated causal claims.
• Surrogate/depth-of-anesthesia endpoints presented as clinically definitive without patient outcomes.
• Missing trial registration, protocol/SAP, or the required reporting checklist.
• Pure surgical-technique or pure basic-neuroscience work with no perioperative/anesthetic anchor.

Re-routing decision

• Surgical technique or operative outcome is the primary contribution → jama-surgery.
• Anesthesia-related ICU/organ-support dominant over perioperative care → critical-care-medicine.
• Respiratory/ventilation mechanism dominant → american-journal-of-respiratory-and-critical-care-medicine.
• Obstetric anesthesia centered on maternal/fetal outcomes → american-journal-of-obstetrics-and-gynecology.
• Broad practice-changing perioperative trial → general medicine (jama / NEJM / The Lancet in the natural-science bundle).

Output format

[Fit] High / Medium / Low (one-line reason)
[Target] Anesthesiology (ASA)
[Specialty tags] <perioperative / anesthetic pharmacology / pain / anesthesia-critical-care>
[Study design / reporting guideline] <RCT-CONSORT / cohort-STROBE / review-PRISMA / animal-ARRIVE>
[Method/evidence] <power, prespecified perioperative outcome, registration/SAP, mechanism>
[Top risk] <the single most likely reason for rejection>
[Official items to re-check] <article type / registration / checklist / SAP / IACUC / ethics / disclosures>
[Re-route suggestion] <if not a fit, a better-matched venue>