Nature Reviews Cancer Formatting Requirements: Complete Author Guide

The editorial workflow at Nature Reviews Cancer is more collaborative than at most journals.

1. Commission: the editor reaches out with a topic, or you submit a proposal as a synopsis

1. Planning discussion: you agree on scope, angle, length, figure count, and deadline

1. Outline: you agree the article's structure with the editor, using the synopsis (a 200-word abstract and a brief description of the main sections) if you are proposing

1. Outline feedback: the editor provides guidance before you begin full writing

1. Full draft submission: complete text with figures that are informative and clear enough to send for peer review

1. Peer review: typically 2-3 expert reviewers, sometimes more (single-blind)

1. Revision: address reviewer comments with editor guidance; a formal rebuttal is required

1. Figure production: the art team redraws the figures after peer review

1. Proofs: you review the final text and display items

1. Publication

The outline stage is where you negotiate the review's intellectual structure. It's worth investing real time here. Include 1-2 sentences per section describing what you plan to cover, identify the key papers you'll discuss, and sketch the figure concepts. Editors appreciate outlines that identify knowledge gaps and open questions, not just summaries of what's known.

Nature Reviews Cancer uses the same figure production workflow as all Nature Reviews titles. Schematics are redrawn by the journal's art editors after peer review, but all elements should be labelled and the figures must be clear enough to send for peer review.

What to submit:

• Rough sketches (digital or hand-drawn) with clear labels

• PowerPoint slides showing pathway diagrams, timelines, or comparative frameworks

• Annotated screenshots or adapted figures (with permission) from published papers

• Tables or data that you want visualized

• Written descriptions of what each figure should communicate

Guidelines for effective figure drafts:

• Label every element explicitly

• Include a written description alongside each figure draft (2-3 sentences explaining the concept)

• Indicate spatial relationships (what connects to what, what's upstream/downstream)

• Specify which elements are essential vs. flexible for the art team

• If adapting from a published source, cite the source and note what changes you want

What makes strong Nature Reviews Cancer figures:

• Signaling pathway diagrams showing drug targets and resistance mechanisms

• Tumor microenvironment schematics with cell type interactions

• Timeline figures showing the evolution of treatment paradigms

• Comparison panels (responders vs. non-responders, primary vs. metastatic)

• Integrative figures connecting molecular biology to clinical outcomes

The art team at Nature Reviews is highly skilled, but they're scientists, not mind-readers. The more specific your instructions, the fewer rounds of revision you'll need, so it's worth getting the initial drafts right.

Nature Reviews Cancer uses the Nature Reviews reference style.

Key formatting rules:

• References numbered and cited sequentially, in the order main text, tables, figures and then boxes

• Superscript numbers in text

• Six or more authors: only the first author is listed, followed by "et al."

• Journal names abbreviated per standard conventions

• Page range and year in parentheses

Example journal article:

1. Zhang, Y., Liu, T., Chen, W., Patel, S. R. & Williams, J. K. Immune checkpoint resistance mechanisms in microsatellite-stable colorectal cancer. Nat. Rev. Cancer 26, 112-128 (2026).

Example preprint (increasingly accepted):

1. Garcia, M. L. & Thompson, R. K. Single-cell atlas of the pancreatic tumor microenvironment. Preprint at bioRxiv doi.org (2026).

The Review format guide asks for approximately 25 references per 1,000 words. The editors expect thorough coverage of the relevant literature, including the most recent publications. If your reference list is missing obvious recent papers, reviewers will flag this. Keep your literature search current through the revision stage.

Clinical trial references should include the ClinicalTrials.gov identifier where applicable. Preprints are increasingly cited in Nature Reviews Cancer, especially for fast-moving areas like immunotherapy or CRISPR therapeutics, but they should be clearly identified as preprints.

Nature Reviews Cancer Reviews include an unstructured abstract, ideally 200 words maximum.

The abstract for a review should:

• Frame the topic and its current relevance

• State what advances or themes the review covers

• Highlight the review's unique contribution (new synthesis, resolved controversy, identified gaps)

• Avoid citations and figure references, and keep specialist detail minimal

Nature Reviews Cancer does not allow a "Key points" section: the Review format guide lists the journal among those where Key points are not allowed, although other Nature Reviews journals require or allow them.

Word is the preferred format for Nature Reviews Cancer (.docx, .doc or .rtf); PDF is not accepted.

Word submissions:

• Continuous line numbers

• Figures: all common file formats are accepted for schematics; graphs with data should be in vector format (PDF, EPS or AI) where possible

• Reference list at end of document

LaTeX:

• Allowed, but discuss it with the editor first

• Word is the practical default

Nature Reviews Cancer articles are mostly narrative text, figures, and references. There's little here that requires LaTeX's equation handling, so Word is the practical choice, and using it avoids unnecessary format conversion.

1. Boxes are allowed in Reviews. Boxes (sidebar panels) can cover specific subtopics in focused detail, and they count toward the limit of 7 display items. Common box topics include clinical trial summaries, technical method explanations, or disease subtype comparisons. Boxes should ideally run 200-500 words each, in discussion with the editor. Propose them in your outline.

2. Clinical relevance should be woven throughout. Even Reviews focused on basic cancer biology are expected to connect findings to clinical implications. Nature Reviews Cancer readers include clinician-scientists, not just bench researchers. If you're reviewing a molecular pathway, discuss its therapeutic targeting potential.

3. Check recent content before proposing. If you're proposing a topic as a synopsis, check the journal's recent content to avoid overlap. Proposals that duplicate recently published reviews are unlikely to move forward.

4. Figure legends are substantial. Unlike primary research journals where figure legends are brief, Nature Reviews Cancer figure legends run about 200 words for large figures and about 100 words for small, one-column figures. They need to be self-contained explanations that a reader can understand without reading the full text.

5. Competing interests for oncology reviews. Cancer researchers frequently have relationships with pharmaceutical companies. Nature Reviews Cancer requires financial and non-financial competing interests to be declared both in the text of the article and in the online submission system at submission, and declared interests are shared with referees and published online and in print. Authors can decline to disclose if they are bound by confidentiality agreements, but the journal publishes the fact that they declined.

6. The "at a glance" standard. Nature Reviews Cancer editors evaluate whether a reader can grasp the review's main messages by looking at the figures. If the visual narrative doesn't stand on its own, the figures need work.

A Nature Reviews Cancer Review follows this structure:

1. Title (informative, descriptive)

1. Author names and affiliations

1. Abstract (unstructured, ideally 200 words maximum)

1. Introduction (why this topic, why now)

1. Main sections (organized by theme, not chronologically)

1. Boxes (sidebars on focused subtopics, counted within the 7 display items)

1. Conclusions and outlook (open questions, future directions)

1. Acknowledgments

1. Competing interests

1. Peer review information (added by editors)

1. References

1. Figures

The main body should use descriptive section headings that convey content, not generic labels. "KRAS-mutant cancers: from undruggable to druggable" is better than "KRAS mutations in cancer." Nature Reviews Cancer readers expect to learn something from the heading alone.

The Conclusions section should emphasize open questions and future directions rather than merely summarizing what was covered. What are the 3-5 most important unanswered questions in this area? What experiments or clinical trials would resolve them? This forward-looking perspective is what distinguishes an outstanding review from a competent one.

For manuscripts targeting Nature Reviews Cancer, three patterns appear most consistently in desk rejections and editorial returns.

Review proposals that overlap with recently published content. Proposals that duplicate a review on the same topic recently published in Nature Reviews Cancer are unlikely to move forward, regardless of the proposed author's credentials. Before sending a proposal, search Nature Reviews Cancer directly for reviews covering your topic. If there's substantial overlap, either narrow your angle significantly or propose how your review supersedes the prior one with newly developed evidence.

Chronological literature summary rather than thematic synthesis. The most consistent reviewer criticism at Nature Reviews Cancer is that the manuscript describes the history of a field rather than synthesizing it into a current understanding. Reviewers expect a thematic structure that builds an argument about where the field stands and where it should go, not a year-by-year progression of discoveries. Sections organized as "Early studies showed X, then researchers found Y, and recently Z was demonstrated" are explicitly flagged as insufficient synthesis, regardless of how well-referenced they are.

Incomplete disclosure of oncology-related competing interests. Cancer biology researchers frequently have consulting relationships with pharmaceutical and biotech companies. Nature Reviews Cancer requires any financial and non-financial competing interests to be declared in the article text and in the online submission system. The threshold for disclosure is lower than most authors assume: if a company's pipeline includes anything related to your review topic, it is worth declaring.

A Run a Nature Reviews Cancer pre-submission checklist checks your proposal structure, figure draft completeness, and competing interest disclosures before submission.

These issues cause the most delays at Nature Reviews Cancer:

• Figure drafts too vague for the art team (always include written descriptions)

• Incomplete competing interest disclosures for oncology-related relationships

• Reference lists missing recent high-impact papers in the field

• Sections organized chronologically rather than thematically

• Boxes that overlap with main text content

• Missing connections between basic science and clinical implications

For a complete overview of the journal, see the Nature Reviews Cancer journal profile. For primary research in cancer biology, see our Cancer Cell formatting requirements guide.

For the official submission guidelines, visit the Nature Reviews Cancer author page.

For Nature Reviews Cancer-targeted manuscripts, three patterns consistently predict formatting desk-screen failure at Nature Reviews Cancer.

Scope-fit ambiguity in the abstract. Nature Reviews Cancer editors move fastest on manuscripts whose contribution is obviously aligned with cancer-research review. Check whether your abstract reads to Nature Reviews Cancer's scope

Methods package incomplete for the journal's reviewer pool. Nature Reviews Cancer reviewers expect specific methodological detail. Reviews lacking critical synthesis vs literature compilation get desk-rejected. Check if your methods package is reviewer-complete

Reference-list and clean-citation failure mode. Reference lists are worth screening for retracted papers before submission. Check whether your reference list is clean against Crossref + Retraction Watch

Manusights submission-corpus signal for Nature Reviews Cancer. Of the manuscripts our team screened before submission to Nature Reviews Cancer and peer venues in 2025, the editorial-culture mismatch most consistent across the cohort is that Nature Reviews Cancer takes proposals as a synopsis, and its author pages say to submit through the link and instructions the editor provides. In our analysis of anonymized Nature Reviews Cancer-targeted submissions,