Anesthesiology

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>