american-journal-of-gastroenterology

The American Journal of Gastroenterology (american-journal-of-gastroenterology)

Journal positioning

The American Journal of Gastroenterology ("the Red Journal") is the flagship journal of the American College of Gastroenterology (ACG), publishing practice-relevant clinical research across luminal gastroenterology, hepatology, pancreaticobiliary disease, and endoscopy, together with ACG clinical guidelines and outcomes scholarship. It serves practicing gastroenterologists and hepatologists and prizes work that informs diagnosis, management, quality, and patient outcomes in real-world GI practice; mechanistic bench studies without a clinical anchor, and underpowered single-center descriptive series with no practice implication, 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 American Journal of Gastroenterology author instructions.

When to trigger

• The author names The American Journal of Gastroenterology for a clinical GI, hepatology, endoscopy, or outcomes study and wants a fit/framing check.
• A GI study must be re-framed around a clear practice-relevant diagnostic, therapeutic, or quality question for practicing clinicians.
• The author is choosing between the Red Journal, a basic GI-science venue, and a hepatology-specialty or general-medicine journal.
• The author needs the journal's reporting-guideline, registration, and desk-reject expectations for clinical GI research.

Scope & topic fit

• Clinical trials and comparative-effectiveness studies in luminal GI disease (IBD, IBS/functional GI, reflux, motility, GI bleeding).
• Endoscopy outcomes, quality metrics, colorectal-cancer screening/surveillance, and procedural comparative studies.
• Clinical hepatology and pancreaticobiliary disease with practice-relevant endpoints (not bench-only mechanism).
• Diagnostic, prognostic, and biomarker studies with clinically meaningful endpoints and an accepted reference standard.
• Health-services, quality-improvement, value-of-care, and epidemiologic GI studies; ACG guidelines and systematic reviews/meta-analyses on focused clinical questions.
• Patient-reported outcomes and management studies that change or clarify GI clinical decision making.

Method & evidence bar

• Studies must be adequately powered with prespecified, patient-centered primary outcomes; surrogate-only endpoints need strong 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 accuracy.
• Interventional trials require prospective registration; the registration number and protocol/statistical-analysis plan are expected.
• Observational and database studies must address confounding, selection, and missing data explicitly; causal language must match the design.
• Endoscopy/procedural and diagnostic studies should report operator/reader variability and an appropriate reference standard where relevant.
• Effect estimates should be reported with confidence intervals and absolute as well as relative measures; clinical (not just statistical) significance must be argued.

Structure & house style

• ACG/Wolters Kluwer format with a structured abstract and, where required, a "Study Highlights" / what-is-known/what-is-new summary; re-check current article types and limits on the live guide.
• The introduction frames a focused, practice-relevant clinical question; the discussion states the management or guideline implication plainly for practicing GI clinicians.
• Tables/figures follow journal statistical-reporting standards; a CONSORT/STROBE/PRISMA flow diagram is expected where applicable.
• Supplements carry the protocol, 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 ACG anchors, then cite the current American Journal of Gastroenterology page you checked.
• Search the live site for "American Journal of Gastroenterology instructions for authors" and follow the current ACG version.
• Re-check article types, word/reference/table limits, structured-abstract and Study Highlights format, and statistical-reporting requirements.
• Confirm trial registration, the reporting checklist (CONSORT/STROBE/PRISMA/STARD), data-sharing statement, and protocol/SAP submission.
• Re-check IRB/ethics and consent, 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, practice-relevant GI question with a clear management or guideline implication.
• The primary outcome is prespecified and patient-centered; the study is adequately powered.
• 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.
• Confounding, selection, and missing data are addressed, and causal language matches the design.
• IRB/consent, ICMJE disclosures, and a data-sharing statement are prepared.

Common desk-reject triggers

• Bench/mechanistic studies with no clinical anchor or practice relevance for GI clinicians.
• Underpowered single-center descriptive series with limited generalizability and no practice change.
• Observational/database analyses with inadequate confounding control or overstated causal claims.
• Missing trial registration, protocol, or the required reporting checklist.
• Diagnostic/endoscopy studies with no reference standard or unreported operator/reader variability.
• Narrow subspecialty-science interest better served by a basic GI or specialty hepatology journal.

Re-routing decision

• European/EASL liver-disease emphasis or mechanistic hepatology → journal-of-hepatology.
• North-American/AASLD liver biology and disease, especially mechanistic → hepatology.
• Practice-changing, broadly significant trial → general medicine (jama / NEJM / The Lancet in the natural-science bundle).
• GI cancer dominated by a systemic-oncology endpoint → jama-oncology / annals-of-oncology.
• Pure basic GI cell/molecular mechanism with no clinical translation → a basic-science venue in the natural-science bundle.

Output format

[Fit] High / Medium / Low (one-line reason)
[Target] The American Journal of Gastroenterology (ACG)
[GI tags] <2–3 closest topics, e.g. IBD trial, colorectal screening, endoscopy quality>
[Study design / reporting guideline] <RCT-CONSORT / cohort-STROBE / review-PRISMA / diagnostic-STARD>
[Method/evidence] <power, patient-centered endpoint, registration, reference standard>
[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>