Journal profile · ONCOLOGY
Rare Tumors
ISSN 2036-3605 · eISSN 2036-3613 · SAGE Publishing · United Kingdom
Rare Tumors: CAS Zone 4 · Medicine (2025 upgraded edition); impact factor 1.2 (journal website); fully open access; APC about USD 2,000; median 147 days to acceptance (39 articles, last 24 months); acceptance rate 42.1% (journal website); 15 articles in 2025; indexed in ESCI and Scopus.
Scope
Aims, scope and focus
Rare Tumors is published by SAGE Publishing and is in Zone 4 of Medicine in the CAS Journal Ranking (2025 upgraded edition). By OpenAlex counts of its recent articles, its largest topics are Sarcoma Diagnosis and Treatment, Cardiac tumors and thrombi and Vascular Tumors and Angiosarcomas, together about 26.8% of its articles. (generated from OpenAlex topic counts and CAS ranking data)
Rare Tumors is a peer-reviewed, open access journal, which focuses on the study, diagnosis and treatment of rare cancers. View full journal description This journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).
From the journal's Aims & Scope
Research area (LetPub): ONCOLOGY
Editorial board by country: 2 in mainland China (about 4%); most named United States 21, Italy 9, India 4, Mainland China 2, United Kingdom 2 (56 members with a country) Editorial board ↗Publisher website ·
Main research topics OpenAlex counts of recent articles; shares are approximate
- Sarcoma Diagnosis and TreatmentMedicine15.2%
- Cardiac tumors and thrombiMedicine6.3%
- Vascular Tumors and AngiosarcomasMedicine5.2%
- Bone Tumor Diagnosis and TreatmentsMedicine5.1%
- Tumors and Oncological CasesMedicine4.8%
- Soft tissue tumor case studiesMedicine4.7%
- Neuroendocrine Tumor Research AdvancesMedicine4.5%
- Cancer and Skin LesionsMedicine4.2%
Rankings & indexing
CAS ranking and database indexing
CAS Journal Ranking
CAS Journal Ranking, upgraded edition (March 2025)Medicine Zone 4
| Level | Category | Zone |
|---|---|---|
| Major | Medicine | Zone 4 |
| Minor | Oncology | Zone 4 |
Top journal: noReview journal: no
CAS Xinrui Journal Ranking (March 2026)Medicine Zone 4
| Level | Category | Zone |
|---|---|---|
| Major | Medicine | Zone 4 |
| Minor | Oncology | Zone 4 |
Top journal: noReview journal: not marked
CAS Journal Ranking, previous upgraded edition (December 2023)Not covered
Not covered by this edition.
Database indexing
ESCIScopusDOAJLetPub
International journal early-warning lists: not listed in any editionLetPub
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 (publisher)
- 1.2Publisher website ·
- 5-year impact factor (publisher)
- 1.2Publisher website ·
- CiteScore 2026-06
- 1.6LetPub ·
- SJR 2026-06
- 0.37LetPub ·
- SNIP 2026-06
- 0.9LetPub ·
- h-index
- 32OpenAlex ·
- i10-index
- 276OpenAlex ·
- 2-year mean citedness
- 1.3OpenAlex ·
- Self-citation rate
- 0%LetPub ·
- Share of gold OA articles
- 100%LetPub ·
Volume
- Articles per year
- 15LetPub ·
- Articles per year (publisher)
- 3Publisher website ·
Articles by year OpenAlex count · 718 in total · the current year is incomplete
| Year | Articles | Open access | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 24 | 24 | 1 |
| 2025 | 15 | 15 | 19 |
| 2024 | 28 | 28 | 67 |
| 2023 | 36 | 36 | 129 |
| 2022 | 18 | 18 | 96 |
| 2021 | 38 | 38 | 178 |
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 PubMed · to
147 daysMedian, submission to acceptance · P25–P75 94 days – 189 days
- Acceptance to online
- median 20 days (39 articles)
- Submission to online
- median 169 days
- Sample
- 39 articles with submission and acceptance dates (42 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)
- about 15 weeksLetPub ·
- Acceptance rate (publisher)
- 42.1%Publisher website ·
- Submission to first decision
- 10 daysPublisher website ·
- Acceptance to publication
- 19 daysPublisher website ·
- Submission to publication (journal-reported)
- about 15 weeksDOAJ ·
- Peer review
- Single anonymous 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 | USD 2,000 | Yes | CC BY, CC BY-NC | |
| OpenAlex | USD 2,000 | — | — | |
| LetPub | USD 2,000 | Yes | — | |
| Publisher website | USD 2,400 | — | — |
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)
What to prepare8 items from the author guidelines
- Abstract
- ≤ 300 words
- Manuscript length
- ≤ 6,000 words
- Reference style
- Vancouver
- First submission
- Free format: the journal's layout is not required
- Suggested reviewers
- Optional
- Highlights
- Required
- Graphical abstract
- Optional
- Cover letter
- Required
Article types accepted10, with length limits
- letter to the editorThese brief opinion pieces should be as concise as possible. A letter to the editor is a brief communication that addresses the contents of a published article.…Length not stated
- letters to the editord Letter to the Editor, if they desire. Letters to the editor should be structured for peer review as follows: one or two paragraphs totaling no more than 1000 …main text ≤ 1,000 words
- literature reviewView our Special Collections currently accepting submissions. Please visit the Sage Journal Author Gateway for guidance on producing visual and/or video abstrac…Length not stated
- meta-analysisThese include statistical procedures, mainly conducted in the context of a systematic review, that combine the results of multiple independent primary studies a…Length not stated
- original research articleView our Special Collections currently accepting submissions. Please visit the Sage Journal Author Gateway for guidance on producing visual and/or video abstrac…Length not stated
- perspectiveView our Special Collections currently accepting submissions. Please visit the Sage Journal Author Gateway for guidance on producing visual and/or video abstrac…Length not stated
- research articleView our Special Collections currently accepting submissions. Please visit the Sage Journal Author Gateway for guidance on producing visual and/or video abstrac…Length not stated
- reviewView our Special Collections currently accepting submissions. Please visit the Sage Journal Author Gateway for guidance on producing visual and/or video abstrac…Length not stated
- review articleView our Special Collections currently accepting submissions. Please visit the Sage Journal Author Gateway for guidance on producing visual and/or video abstrac…Length not stated
- systematic reviewSystematic reviews consist of systematic quantitative and/or qualitative syntheses of research. Manuscripts submitted in this category may contain a statistical…Length not stated
Policy excerpts from the journal's websiteAuthorship, Data availability, Publication ethics, License & copyright, Open access, Peer review, Plagiarism, Preprints, Trial registration / reporting guidelines
- Authorship Author contributions
You will be asked to list the contribution of each author as part of the submission process. Please include the Author Contributions heading within your submission after the Acknowledgements section. The information you give on submission will then show under the Author Contributions heading later at the proofing stage.
Source ↗Publisher website ·- Data availability Data availability
The Journal is committed to facilitating openness, transparency and reproducibility of research, and has the following research data sharing policy. For more information, including FAQs please visit the Sage Research Data policy pages. Subject to appropriate ethical and legal considerations, authors are encouraged to: Share your research data in a relevant public data repository Include a data ava…
Source ↗Publisher website ·- Publication ethics Ethical considerations
Please include your ethics approval statements under this heading, even if you have already included ethics approval information in your methods section. If ethical approval was not required, you need to explicitly state this. All papers reporting studies involving human participants, human data or human tissue must state that the relevant Ethics Committee or Institutional Review Board approved th…
Source ↗Publisher website ·- License & copyright
Manuscript content licensed under Creative Commons Licenses Model summary
Manuscript content on this site is licensed under Creative Commons Licenses
Source ↗Publisher website ·- Open access Publishing fees and open access
Rare Tumors is an open access, peer-reviewed journal. All accepted articles are made freely available online immediately upon publication, are published under a Creative Commons license, and hosted online in perpetuity. If, after peer review, your manuscript is accepted for publication, a one-time article processing charge (APC) is payable to cover the cost of publishing, paid by the funder, insti…
Source ↗Publisher website ·- Peer review Peer review policy
The following summary describes the peer review process for this journal: Identity transparency: Single-anonymized Reviewer interacts with: Editor Review information published: None Your manuscript will undergo an initial evaluation. If it does not conform to the requirements laid out in these guidelines, it will be returned to you for amendments prior to peer review. Manuscripts may be desk rejec…
Source ↗Publisher website ·- Plagiarism Plagiarism
The journal and Sage take issues of copyright infringement, plagiarism or other breaches of best practice in publication very seriously. Please read Sage's complete policy on plagiarism and the actions we may take.
Source ↗Publisher website ·- Preprints Preprints
The journal does not accept submissions of manuscripts that have been posted on preprint servers.
Source ↗Publisher website ·- Trial registration / reporting guidelines Clinical trial registration
The journal conforms to the ICMJE requirement that clinical trials are registered in a WHO-approved public trials registry at or before the time of first participant enrollment as a condition of consideration for publication. The trial registry name and URL, and registration number must be included at the end of the abstract.
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
- SAGE Publishing
- Country or region
- United Kingdom
- Language
- English
- ISSN
- 2036-3605
- Electronic ISSN
- 2036-3613
- Official links
- Journal homepage ↗OpenAlex
- Submission system ↗Publisher website
- Author guidelines ↗LetPub
- Aims & Scope ↗LetPub
- Special issues ↗Publisher website
- APC information ↗DOAJ
- Fee waivers ↗DOAJ
- Open access statement ↗DOAJ
- License & copyright ↗DOAJ
- Peer review process ↗LetPub
- Editorial board ↗LetPub
- Plagiarism policy ↗DOAJ
FAQ
Frequently asked questions about Rare Tumors
What CAS zone is Rare Tumors in?
In the 2025 upgraded edition of the CAS Journal Ranking, Rare Tumors is in Zone 4 of Medicine, and in Zone 4 of the minor category Oncology. In the 2026 Xinrui edition it is in Zone 4 of Medicine. Zones from different editions, and from major and minor categories, are not interchangeable.
What is the impact factor of Rare Tumors?
The journal's website gives an impact factor of 1.2; this is the journal's own figure, as LetPub lists none for it; CiteScore 1.6, h-index 32.
How long does peer review take at Rare Tumors?
Based on the dates recorded on 39 articles published between October 2024 and October 2026 (the last 24 months), the median time from submission to acceptance is 147 days (interquartile range 94–189 days); authors report an average review time of about 15 weeks; the journal's website gives an acceptance rate of 42.1%. 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 Rare Tumors?
According to the journal's author guidelines: Abstract: ≤ 300 words; Manuscript length: ≤ 6,000 words; Reference style: Vancouver; First submission: Free format: the journal's layout is not required; Suggested reviewers: Optional; Highlights: Required; Graphical abstract: Optional; Cover letter: Required. 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.
Where are the editorial board members of Rare Tumors based?
Of the 56 board members whose country the journal's board page names, 2 (about 4%) are in mainland China; the countries named most often are United States (21), Italy (9) and India (4). Counted from the institutions listed on the board page; for reference only.
Which databases index Rare Tumors?
According to LetPub and DOAJ records, Rare Tumors is indexed in ESCI, Scopus and DOAJ.
Is Rare Tumors open access, and what is the APC?
Rare Tumors is a fully open-access journal. APC about USD 2,000.
Sources and updates
The facts on this page come from LetPub, Publisher website, OpenAlex, DOAJ; 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 2026-08-30). Last updated: .