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

[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] <RCT-CONSORT / cohort-STROBE / review-PRISMA / diagnostic-STARD>
[Method/evidence] <power, endpoint validity, registration, validation cohort>
[Top risk] <the single most likely reason for rejection>
[Official items to re-check] <article type / registration / checklist / ethics / disclosures>
[Re-route suggestion] <if not a fit, a better-matched venue>