Kidney International (kidney-international)

Journal positioning

Kidney International is the flagship journal of the International Society of Nephrology (ISN), publishing high-impact nephrology and hypertension research with an explicitly global, international perspective across clinical and translational science: kidney disease epidemiology and trials, dialysis and transplantation, and mechanistic kidney biology with clear human relevance. Its defining expectation is a clinically or translationally important advance in kidney health that matters across diverse health systems and populations, with strong representation of global-health, epidemiologic, and outcomes nephrology alongside disease mechanism — not a narrow single-center series or a basic experiment with no human anchor. Compared with the U.S.-society sibling, KI leans toward international clinical breadth and translational relevance. 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 Kidney International author instructions.

When to trigger

• The author names Kidney International for a nephrology, hypertension, or kidney translational study and wants a fit/framing check.
• A kidney study must be re-framed around international clinical relevance, outcomes, or disease mechanism with human anchoring.
• The author is choosing between Kidney International and the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (ASN flagship), or general medicine.
• The author needs the journal's reporting-guideline, registration, and global-health/ epidemiology expectations.

Scope & topic fit

• Clinical nephrology and hypertension: CKD, AKI, glomerular disease, and blood-pressure/ kidney interactions across diverse populations.
• Kidney-disease epidemiology and global-health nephrology: burden, access, and outcomes across health systems and resource settings.
• Dialysis and transplantation: outcomes, modality, access, and organ-preservation research with international relevance.
• Translational kidney science: biomarkers, genetics/genomics, and mechanism studies with validated human relevance.
• Clinical trials and large multinational cohorts with kidney endpoints.
• Hypertension and cardio-renal research connecting kidney function to systemic outcomes.

Method & evidence bar

• Clinical studies must be adequately powered with prespecified, patient-centered kidney endpoints; trials require prospective registration and the registration number.
• The applicable reporting guideline and checklist are expected: CONSORT for trials, STROBE for observational/epidemiologic work, PRISMA for systematic reviews, ARRIVE for animal studies.
• Epidemiologic and global-health studies must address representativeness, confounding, bias, and generalizability across settings explicitly.
• Translational claims need validated human relevance (tissue, biofluids, or cohorts); basic experiments need controls and biological replication.
• Effect estimates need confidence intervals and absolute as well as relative measures; causal language must match the design.
• eGFR/biomarker methods, kidney-outcome definitions, and statistical-analysis plans must be explicit.

Structure & house style

• ISN format with a structured abstract and a translational/lay-significance statement; re-check current article types (Clinical Investigation, Basic Research, etc.) and limits on the live guide.
• The introduction frames the global clinical or biological gap; the discussion states the practice implication and bounds generalizability.
• A CONSORT/STROBE/PRISMA flow diagram is expected for the relevant clinical design; animal work reports ARRIVE-aligned detail.
• Figures show representative data with statistics and N; a supplement carries full methods, the protocol/SAP, 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 ISN anchors, then cite the current Kidney International page you checked.
• Search the live site for "Kidney International ISN instructions for authors" and follow the current version.
• Re-check article types, abstract and significance-statement format, and word/figure/reference limits.
• Confirm trial registration, the reporting checklist (CONSORT/STROBE/PRISMA/ARRIVE), data/code-availability, and protocol/SAP submission.
• Re-check IRB/ethics and consent, transplant-donor consent where relevant, 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/translationally important kidney finding with relevance across settings.
• Clinical kidney endpoints are prespecified and powered; trials are registered with the number in the manuscript.
• The correct reporting checklist (CONSORT/STROBE/PRISMA/ARRIVE) is completed and attached.
• Epidemiologic work addresses representativeness, confounding, and generalizability.
• Translational claims are anchored to validated human relevance; basic work shows controls and replication.
• IRB/consent, IACUC (if animal), ICMJE disclosures, and a data-availability statement are prepared.

Common desk-reject triggers

• Single-center descriptive series with limited generalizability and no broader relevance.
• Epidemiologic analyses with inadequate confounding control or overstated causal claims.
• Basic experiments with no human anchor, replication, or ARRIVE-aligned rigor.
• Missing trial registration, protocol, or the required reporting checklist.
• Incremental dialysis/transplant or hypertension outcome reports with limited novelty or scope.

Re-routing decision

• U.S.-society, mechanism-forward nephrology with deep basic science → journal-of-the-american-society-of-nephrology.
• Diabetic kidney disease centered on endocrine/metabolic mechanism → diabetologia / journal-of-clinical-endocrinology-and-metabolism.
• Critical-care AKI dominated by ICU organ-support → critical-care-medicine / american-journal-of-respiratory-and-critical-care-medicine.
• Broad practice-changing nephrology trial → general medicine (jama / NEJM / The Lancet in the natural-science bundle).
• Pure renal cell biology with no disease/population anchor → a basic-science venue in the natural-science bundle.

Output format

[Fit] High / Medium / Low (one-line reason)
[Target] Kidney International (ISN)
[Specialty tags] <clinical nephrology / hypertension / epidemiology / transplant + global relevance>
[Study design / reporting guideline] <RCT-CONSORT / cohort-STROBE / review-PRISMA / animal-ARRIVE>
[Method/evidence] <power, generalizability, mechanism/human anchoring, registration>
[Top risk] <the single most likely reason for rejection>
[Official items to re-check] <article type / registration / checklist / consent / ethics / disclosures>
[Re-route suggestion] <if not a fit, a better-matched venue>