The SUPER reporting guideline suggested for reporting of surgical technique: explanation and elaboration.

Background

Surgical technique plays an essential role in achieving good health outcomes. However, the quality of surgical technique reporting remains heterogeneous. Reporting checklists could help authors to describe the surgical technique more transparently and effectively, as well as to assist reviewers and editors evaluate it more informatively, and promote readers to better understand the technique. We previously developed SUPER (surgical technique reporting checklist and standards) to assist authors in reporting their research that contains surgical technique more transparently. However, further explanation and elaboration of each item are needed for better understanding and reporting practice.

Methods

We searched surgical literature in PubMed, Google Scholar and journal websites published up to January 2023 to find multidiscipline examples in various article types for each SUPER item.

Results

We explain the 22 items of the SUPER and provide rationales item by item alongside. We provide 69 examples from 53 literature that present optimal reporting of the 22 items. Article types of examples include pure surgical technique, and case reports, observational studies and clinical trials that contain surgical technique. Examples are multidisciplinary, including general surgery, orthopaedical surgery, cardiac surgery, thoracic surgery, gastrointestinal surgery, neurological surgery, oncogenic surgery, and emergency surgery etc.

Conclusions

Along with SUPER article, this explanation and elaboration file can promote deeper understanding on the SUPER items. We hope that the article could further guide surgeons and researchers in reporting, and assist editors and peer reviewers in reviewing manuscripts related to surgical technique.

Informations de copyright

2023 Gland Surgery. All rights reserved.

Déclaration de conflit d'intérêts

(I) Specify any potential conflicts of interest; (II) include the ethics committee or institutional review board approval (and the number when applicable); and (III) provide the informed consent for publication. Conflicts of interest disclosures have the potential to reduce bias, yet the current disclosure of conflicts of interest is worrying (65,66). Every author should disclose their conflicts of interest, both financial and non-financial, as defined by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (67) and as required by each journal. For example, if a new device is introduced in a surgical technique, the relationship between the manufacturer and the authors should be disclosed (Appendix 2, Example 66). Another example is that if the project is supported by a funder, the funder’s involvement and role in the development of the project should be disclosed (Appendix 2, Example 67). The authors need to ensure that the ethics committee has approved the project and provided an ethics approval number (Appendix 2, Example 68). Research has found that in the field of surgical technique, many surgeons underestimate the importance of obtaining and reporting ethical approval and that there is much room for improving the reporting of ethical approval (66,68,69). Research conducted without ethical approval or even falsified ethical approval documents is at great risk (70). Authors should also obtain informed consent signed by the patient for writing and publishing the article (Appendix 2, Example 69). If this cannot be obtained from the patient, it should be obtained from the patient’s relatives, when local regulations permit. The article should clearly give the statement ‘Signed informed consent was obtained from the patients’. When informed consent could not be obtained, the author needs to ensure that all possible attempts have been made and clearly give the reason and the statement ‘Signed informed consent was not obtained after all possible attempts were made’ or ‘Signed informed consent was not obtained due to ...’.Conflicts of Interest: All authors have completed the ICMJE uniform disclosure form (available at https://gs.amegroups.com/article/view/10.21037/gs-23-76/coif). KZ, GSL, XT and SDW are staffs of AME publishing company (the publisher of Gland Surgery). The other authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.