Anesthesiology

---
name: anesthesiology
description: Use when targeting Anesthesiology or deciding whether an anesthesiology, perioperative-medicine, pain, or critical-care study fits this venue. Encodes the journal's fit, the perioperative-trial and translational bar, reporting-guideline and registration requirements, ASA house style, official-submission re-check, and desk-reject heuristics. Venue-fit aid only, not clinical advice.
---

# 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

```text
[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>
```