Journal profile · SURGERY
BMC Surgery
ISSN 1471-2482 · BioMed Central · ENGLAND · Continuous publication · Founded 2001
BMC Surgery: CAS Zone 3 · Medicine (2025 upgraded edition); impact factor 2.4; fully open access; APC about USD 3,190; median 115 days to acceptance (147 articles, last 24 months); community-reported acceptance: fairly easy; 712 articles in 2025; indexed in SCIE and Scopus.
Scope
Aims, scope and focus
BMC Surgery is published by BioMed Central and is in Zone 3 of Medicine in the CAS Journal Ranking (2025 upgraded edition). By OpenAlex counts of its recent articles, its largest topics are Minimally Invasive Surgical Techniques, Colorectal Cancer Surgical Treatments and Gallbladder and Bile Duct Disorders, together about 21.1% of its articles. Its main subfields are Surgery. (generated from OpenAlex topic counts and CAS ranking data)
BMC Surgery is an open access, peer-reviewed journal that considers articles on surgical research, training, and practice. BMC Surgery considers clinical studies of observational or interventional design in adult and pediatric populations, including cohort, case-control, cross-sectional studies, clinical trials, case reports, case series, diagnostic and imaging studies, epidemiology, population studies, surgical outcome studies, clinical guidelines, policy updates, healthcare organization and management of surgical practices and operating rooms and other study types related to surgical research, training and practice. Journal sections include: Trauma and orthopedic surgery: this section focuses on topics including, but not limited to acute trauma interventions, management of emergency surgical conditions, surgery in disaster medicine, prosthetic surgery, reconstructive surgery, head & neck surgery, brain surgery and more. Vascular and thoracic surgery: this section focuses on cardiovascular surgery, thoracic access procedures, including pulmonary surgical interventions, cardiovascular interventions, flap transfer, microsurgery and lymphatic surgery. Visceral and general surgery: this section focuses on all aspects of visceral surgery, including organ and tissue transplantation, emergency procedures, surgical removal of tumors, acute surgical care, gynecological care, breast surgery, bariatric surgery, minor surgical procedures and more. Cancer surgery: this section focuses on treatment and surgical management of cancers: gynecological, head and neck tumors, breast tumors, abdominal, pelvic, bone, soft tissue tumors and others. Collections: BMC Surgery expands outreach for developing areas in research through collections. Our collections are carefully tailored to address important and highly-relevant questions in the surgical field. A full list of our collections open for submission can be found in the Collections tab. As a BMC Series journal, BMC Surgery does not make editorial decisions based on the perceived interest or potential impact of a study. Manuscripts are considered for publication if they are scientifically valid. For research articles, this includes having a clearly defined and sound research question, appropriate methodology and analysis, and adherence to community-agreed standards relevant to the field. Further details on assessment criteria can be found in our submission guidelines.
From the journal's Aims & Scope
Research area (LetPub): SURGERY
Main research topics OpenAlex counts of recent articles; shares are approximate
- Minimally Invasive Surgical TechniquesMedicine7.3%
- Colorectal Cancer Surgical TreatmentsMedicine7%
- Gallbladder and Bile Duct DisordersMedicine6.9%
- Pancreatic and Hepatic Oncology ResearchMedicine5.3%
- Appendicitis Diagnosis and ManagementMedicine5.2%
- Hernia repair and managementMedicine5.1%
- Gastric Cancer Management and OutcomesMedicine5%
- Enhanced Recovery After SurgeryMedicine4.4%
Rankings & indexing
CAS ranking and database indexing
CAS Journal Ranking
CAS Journal Ranking, upgraded edition (March 2025)Medicine Zone 3
| Level | Category | Zone |
|---|---|---|
| Major | Medicine | Zone 3 |
| Minor | Surgery | Zone 3 |
Top journal: noReview journal: no
CAS Xinrui Journal Ranking (March 2026)Medicine Zone 3
| Level | Category | Zone |
|---|---|---|
| Major | Medicine | Zone 3 |
| Minor | Surgery | Zone 3 |
Top journal: noReview journal: not marked
CAS Journal Ranking, previous upgraded edition (December 2023)Medicine Zone 3
| Level | Category | Zone |
|---|---|---|
| Major | Medicine | Zone 3 |
| Minor | Surgery | Zone 3 |
Top journal: noReview journal: no
Database indexing
SCIEScopusDOAJLetPub
International journal early-warning lists: not listed in any editionLetPub
Indexing the journal's website claims
MEDLINECASPublisher website
Other: Google Scholar, ProQuest, Dimensions, CNKI, Baidu, Naver, OCLC, Portico, CLOCKSS, Semantic Scholar
As the journal's website lists them, not checked against each database; for Web of Science editions the records above apply.
Editions, and major and minor categories, are shown separately and never merged into one zone; check which edition your institution uses before you submit or report.
Metrics
Impact metrics and publication volume
Impact
- Impact factor
- 2.4LetPub ·
- Impact factor (publisher) 2025
- 2.4Publisher website ·
- 5-year impact factor (publisher) 2025
- 2.2Publisher website ·
- CiteScore 2026-06
- 3.1LetPub ·
- SJR 2026-06
- 0.61LetPub ·
- SNIP 2026-06
- 1.15LetPub ·
- h-index
- 41LetPub ·
- h-index
- 83OpenAlex ·
- i10-index
- 1,683OpenAlex ·
- 2-year mean citedness
- 2.08OpenAlex ·
- Self-citation rate
- 4.2%LetPub ·
- Share of gold OA articles
- 99.8%LetPub ·
Volume
- Articles per year
- 707LetPub ·
- Downloads per year (publisher) 2025
- 3,000,000Publisher website ·
Articles by year OpenAlex count · 4,747 in total · the current year is incomplete
| Year | Articles | Open access | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 760 | 760 | 132 |
| 2025 | 712 | 712 | 1,605 |
| 2024 | 427 | 427 | 2,222 |
| 2023 | 385 | 385 | 2,850 |
| 2022 | 448 | 448 | 4,167 |
| 2021 | 448 | 448 | 5,365 |
Sources count differently and were observed at different times, so each source's own value is kept; "publisher" marks figures from the journal's website.
Review & acceptance
Review time and acceptance
Review time from article dates manuscript dates registered with Crossref · to
115 daysMedian, submission to acceptance · P25–P75 79 days – 170 days
- Acceptance to online
- median 11 days (147 articles)
- Submission to online
- median 135 days
- Sample
- 147 articles with submission and acceptance dates (1,611 in the window); the latest was accepted on
Only articles that were accepted and published are counted, not the time spent on rejected manuscripts, so this usually runs longer than a publisher's "time to first decision".
Other sources
- Average review time (community reports)
- 6–12 weeksLetPub ·
- Average acceptance (community reports)
- Fairly easyLetPub ·
- Submission to first decision
- 16 daysPublisher website ·
- Submission to publication (journal-reported)
- about 24 weeksDOAJ ·
- Peer review
- Open peer reviewDOAJ
Community reports come from authors' own submissions (confidence 0.5) and are not a promise from the journal; for publisher figures, the journal's own definitions apply.
Fees & open access
APC and open-access policy
Fully open accessDOAJ
Every article is open access; authors usually pay an article processing charge (APC).
| Source | APC | Fee waiver | License | Observed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| DOAJ | EUR 2,690 / USD 3,190 / GBP 2,390 | Yes | CC BY, CC BY-NC-ND | |
| OpenAlex | USD 3,090 / EUR 2,590 / GBP 2,290 | — | — | |
| LetPub | GBP 2,190 / USD 2,990 / EUR 2,490 | Yes | — | |
| Publisher website | GBP 2,390 / USD 3,190 / EUR 2,690 | — | — |
The journal's website is authoritative for fees; sources were observed at different times and each keeps its own value, without averaging.
Submission
Article types and submission policies (journal website)
Open calls for papers3, by deadline
Publisher websiteWhat to prepare3 items from the author guidelines
- Reference style
- Author–date
- Templates
- LaTeX and Word
- Suggested reviewers
- Optional
Policy excerpts from the journal's websiteData availability, License & copyright, Open access, Peer review
- Data availability Formatting the 'Availability of data and materials' section of your manuscript
The following format for the 'Availability of data and materials section of your manuscript should be used:
Source ↗Publisher website ·- License & copyright Licensing and copyright
Creative Commons licences Open access articles in Springer Nature journals are published under Creative Commons licences. These provide an industry-standard framework to support easy re-use of open access material. Under Creative Commons licences, authors retain copyright of their articles. BMC Surgery articles are published open access under a CC BY-NC-ND (Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commerc…
Source ↗Publisher website ·- Open access Benefits of open access
Publishing open access (OA) offers a number of benefits, including greater reach and readership for your work: Cited more 1.6x more citations of OA articles than non-OA articles across all subjects Downloaded more 4x more downloads of OA articles than non-OA articles Greater impact 2.5x more Altmetric attention. OA articles attracted 1.9x more news mentions and 1.2x more policy mentions Open acces…
Source ↗Publisher website ·- Peer review Peer review policy
Peer review is the process used to evaluate the quality of a manuscript before publication. Independent researchers in the relevant field assess submitted manuscripts to check their validity and robustness. Their feedback guides editors in making publication decisions. Typically, two or more experts evaluate each manuscript based on three main criteria: scientific robustness: is the research metho…
Source ↗Publisher website ·
Excerpts are quoted from the journal's website; "model summary" lines are written by Workers AI and checked against the text. The journal's website is authoritative.
Profile
Publication details and official links
- Publisher
- BioMed Central
- Country or region
- ENGLAND
- Language
- English
- Frequency
- Continuous publication
- Founded
- 2001
- ISSN
- 1471-2482
- Official links
- Journal homepage ↗DOAJ
- Submission system ↗LetPub
- Author guidelines ↗DOAJ
- Aims & Scope ↗DOAJ
- Special issues ↗Publisher website
- APC information ↗DOAJ
- Fee waivers ↗DOAJ
- Open access statement ↗DOAJ
- License & copyright ↗DOAJ
- Peer review process ↗DOAJ
- Editorial board ↗DOAJ
- Plagiarism policy ↗DOAJ
FAQ
Frequently asked questions about BMC Surgery
What CAS zone is BMC Surgery in?
In the 2025 upgraded edition of the CAS Journal Ranking, BMC Surgery is in Zone 3 of Medicine, and in Zone 3 of the minor category Surgery. In the 2026 Xinrui edition it is in Zone 3 of Medicine. Zones from different editions, and from major and minor categories, are not interchangeable.
What is the impact factor of BMC Surgery?
The latest impact factor listed by LetPub is 2.4; CiteScore 3.1, h-index 83.
How long does peer review take at BMC Surgery?
Based on the dates recorded on 147 articles published between October 2024 and October 2026 (the last 24 months), the median time from submission to acceptance is 115 days (interquartile range 79–170 days); authors report an average review time of 6–12 weeks; the community-reported acceptance is “Fairly easy”. Article statistics cover accepted papers only, publisher figures follow the journal's own definitions, and community reports come from authors' own submissions; none is a promise from the journal.
What are the manuscript requirements of BMC Surgery?
According to the journal's author guidelines: Reference style: Author–date; Templates: LaTeX and Word; Suggested reviewers: Optional. A model extracted these from the author guidelines and each was checked against the text; check the latest version on the journal's website before submitting.
Which databases index BMC Surgery?
According to LetPub and DOAJ records, BMC Surgery is indexed in SCIE, Scopus and DOAJ. The journal's website also lists MEDLINE and CAS; that list has not been checked against each database.
Is BMC Surgery open access, and what is the APC?
BMC Surgery is a fully open-access journal. APC about USD 3,190.
Sources and updates
The facts on this page come from LetPub, OpenAlex, DOAJ, Publisher website; every figure is tagged with its source and the date it was observed, and conflicting values are kept per source. LetPub source page: view ↗ (archived 2026-08-26). Last updated: .