
$5,000
PRIZE
Accuray is collaborating with Cureus to bring you the first Frameless Stereotactic Radiosurgery: Advanced Planning and Delivery to Critical Brain and Spinal Structures publishing competition. We invite original articles, case series and case studies reporting clinical outcomes, as well as technical reports and treatment planning studies. All articles should focus on challenging cases involving the brain and/or spine.
We’ve created this competition in an effort to encourage the continued advancement of best practices in central nervous system (CNS) stereotactic radiosurgery. We encourage you to contribute your experience and expertise to this extremely important field.
All articles published as part of this competition will be indexed in PubMed Central and distributed to large communities of relevant clinicians around the globe.
Competition Entries
The entry period is now closed. Competition entries appear below as they are published. Now is your chance to score and discuss these articles. Remember, prizes will be awarded to the three highest-scoring articles!
Requirements
Competition entry and article submission is entirely free. Eligible entries include original articles, case series, case reports, technical reports and treatment planning studies.
All articles must be submitted and formatted via the template-driven, self-publishing Cureus platform. All submitted work must be previously unpublished.
Reference limits vary by article type. For additional information on publishing with Cureus, please refer to our Author Guide.
Statement of Independence
- Cureus Publishing Competitions are intended to encourage medical discovery, document clinical experiences – be they positive, negative, or neutral - and foster broader educational outreach through open access publication that is free to both authors and readers.
- Article submissions must adhere to the described “call for articles” and are open to any and all related manufacturer or vendor technologies.
- As a firewall to ensure objective and credible science, article selection, editorial review, peer review and publication are strictly independent of sponsoring company.
- Winning articles are determined exclusively via peer review panel and community crowdsourced scoring. Neither sponsoring company, nor Cureus, can determine competition outcome.

Awards
Three monetary prizes will be awarded to the published articles that receive the highest Cureus SIQ™ (Scholarly Impact Quotient™) score: $5,000 USD for 1st place, $2,000 USD for 2nd place, and $1,000 USD for 3rd place.
SIQ is Cureus’ unique crowdsourced, post-publication peer-review process. In addition to measuring engagement, SIQ allows the community-at-large to rate the quality of individual articles. Reviewers assign scores from 1 to 10 on criteria including clarity and rationale, clinical importance, study design and methods, data analysis, novelty of conclusions and quality of presentation.
Aggregated community SIQ scores allow clinicians and researchers to quickly assess the quality of an article in a manner similar to that of Amazon® and Yelp® customer reviews.
A Cureus user can assign only one score per article. As engagement and scoring is critical to winning, authors are highly encouraged to share their published articles via social media and email.
Peer Review Panel
We’ve assembled a world-class peer review panel to review all submitted articles. Click on a reviewer name to learn more.
Article analysis and commentary performed by the peer review panel are strictly independent of the sponsor.

Judith Murovic
M.D. | Neurological SurgeryDepartment of Neurosurgery, Stanford University School of Medicine, Palo Alto, USA

Alfredo Conti
Associate Professor, M.D., Ph.D. | Neurological SurgeryDepartment of Neurological Surgery, University of Messina

Marcello Cm. Marchetti
M.D. | Neurological SurgeryDepartment of Neurological Surgery, Fondazione IRCCS Istituto Neurologico C. Besta

Steven D. Chang
M.D. | Neurological SurgeryDepartment of Neurosurgery, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, USA

Anand Mahadevan
M.D., Assistant Professor | Radiation OncologyDepartment of Radiation Therapy, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center

Jimm Grimm
Ph.D. | Radiation OncologyDepartment of Radiation Oncology, Geisinger Cancer Institute, Danville, USA

Robert Sinha
M.D. | Radiation OncologyMedical Director, Department of Radiation Oncology, El Camino Hospital


Jonathan Haas
M.D., Associate Professor | Radiation OncologyDepartment of Radiation Oncology, Winthrop University Hospital


Sean P. Collins
M.D., Ph.D. | Radiation OncologyDepartment of Radiation Medicine, Georgetown University Hospital
Matthew Witten
Ph.D. | Radiation OncologyDepartment of Radiation Oncology, Winthrop University Hospital

Key Dates
- Tuesday, February 2, 2016 – Competition begins; articles may now be submitted.
- Tuesday, April 12, 2016 – Article submission deadline @ 5:00 pm PT. (Deadline extended one week!)
- Tuesday, May 3, 2016 – Peer review of all eligible articles concludes @ 5:00 pm PT. (Deadline extended one week!)
- Friday, June 3, 2016 – Community post-publication review (SIQ) ends @ 5:00 pm PT.
- Tuesday, June 7, 2016 – Winning articles announced; the winning author(s) will be contacted and formally announced on the Cureus website.