How Long Does Peer Review Take?

Waiting for a decision is the hardest part of submitting a manuscript. Here is what peer review involves, why the time varies so much, and what you can do to avoid delays.

The stages that take time

  1. Editorial screening. An editor checks scope, ethics approval, consent, reporting standards and similarity before sending the paper out.
  2. Finding reviewers. Editors invite experts who are volunteers. Several may decline before two accept, and each invitation takes days to answer.
  3. The reviews themselves. Reviewers read, check and write their reports alongside their own clinical and research work.
  4. The decision. The editor weighs the reports, which may disagree, and writes to you.
  5. Revision rounds. Most papers are revised at least once, and a revised paper may go back to the same reviewers.

Why the time varies

For many medical journals a first decision takes several weeks, and the full process with revisions often takes a few months. The main factors are how easy it is to find reviewers in your topic, how complete the manuscript is when it arrives, and how quickly revisions come back.

Case reports are usually shorter than original research, but they still need consent, a clear timeline and a real teaching point, and they go through the same stages.

What you can control

  • Choose a journal whose scope clearly fits your paper, so it is not returned without review.
  • Follow the author guidelines exactly: word limits, reference style, figure files, declarations.
  • Include the ethics or consent statement and every required form at submission.
  • Suggest qualified reviewers if the journal allows it, with no conflicts of interest.
  • Answer every reviewer comment point by point and resubmit promptly.

When to follow up

If your manuscript has shown the same status for much longer than the journal's stated timeline, a short, polite message to the editorial office is reasonable. Quote your manuscript number and ask whether anything is needed from you.

How ASIDE Case Reports handles review

At ASIDE Case Reports, every manuscript is screened by an editor and then assessed by at least two independent reviewers under double-anonymous peer review. There is no fee at any stage, and no fee to speed things up.

Submit your case report, free Why publish with ASIDE Case Reports →