
$3,000
PRIZE
The Cureus Journal of Medical Science is proud to introduce the Multiple Brain Metastases: Exceptional Outcomes from Stereotactic Radiosurgery (SRS) publishing competition.
Brain metastases develop in approximately 10% to 20% of all cancer patients. SRS is emerging as a new standard of care given its ability to spare normal brain tissue and potentially better maintain patient neurocognitive function. This program seeks to inventory related case reports documenting notable outcomes and quality-of-life measures in long-term survival patients.
Our goal is to share the resulting case reports with Cureus' global community of oncology and neurosurgery clincians, as well as patients who might benefit. To encourage dissemination and cross-disciplinary awareness, all published materials will be Open Access and indexed with PubMed Central.
The winner of this publishing competition will be determined by general acclaim of the medical community using Cureus Scholarly Impact Quotient™ (SIQ™) crowdsourcing technology.
Interested in patient education for SRS treatments for brain metastases? The below short video preview provides related insights from world-renowned clinical experts and their patients. The full-length 30-minute video is also available and shareable as a free patient education tool.
Program administration has been enabled through the financial support of Brainlab. Article selection, editorial review, peer review, publication, and competition winner determination are strictly independent of the sponsor.
Peer Review Panel
All article submissions will undergo an independent pre-publication peer review conducted by a world-class team of experts.

John A. Vargo
| Radiation OncologyDepartment of Radiation Oncology, West Virginia University School of Medicine, Morgantown, USA


Robert E. Jacobson
| Neurological SurgeryNeurological Surgery, University of Miami Hospital, Miami, USA

Nikos Papanikolaou
Ph.D. | Medical PhysicsDepartment of Radiation Oncology, University of Texas Health Science Center San Antonio, San Antonio, USA

Alfred Haidenberger
M.D. | Radiation OncologyRadiation Oncologist, European CyberKnife Center Munich, Munich, DEU

Lijun Ma
Professor, Ph.D. | Medical PhysicsDepartment of Radiation Oncology, University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine, Los Angeles, USA

Marc Moisi
M.D. | Neurological SurgeryNeurosurgery, Seattle Science Foundation, Seattle, USA | Neurosurgery, Wayne State University School of Medicine, Detroit, USA

Haisong Liu
Ph.D. | Medical PhysicsDepartment of Radiation Oncology, Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia, USA

Joe Ho
Ph.D. | Medical PhysicsDepartment of Radiation Oncology, Sutter Health Alta Bates Summit Medical Center

Allen L. Ho
M.D., Resident Physician | Neurological SurgeryNeurosurgery, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, USA

Dwight E. Heron
M.D., Professor | Radiation OncologyDepartment of Radiation Oncology, University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, UPMC

David Roberge
M.D. | Radiation OncologyRadiation Oncology, Centre Hospitalier de l'Université de Montréal (CHUM), Montréal, CAN
Competition Entries
The entry period is now closed. Competition entries appear below as they are published. Now is your chance to rate and discuss these articles. Remember, a $3,000 prize will be awarded to the highest-rated article!
Requirements
Competition entry and article submission is entirely free. Eligible entrees include case reports and case series only. All submitted work must be previously unpublished and should not be under consideration for publication elsewhere.
Competition entry is limited to only the first 50 draft article submissions (maximum one article entry per submitting author).
All articles must be submitted and formatted via the template-driven, self-publishing Cureus platform. Authors are encouraged to include supporting animations and videos within their article submissions. For additional information on publishing with Cureus, please refer to our Author Guide.
Other Stipulations
- All clinical studies must be compliant with applicable regulatory, ethics / IRB, and other rules governing protection of human subjects.
- All non-clinical studies must be compliant with applicable AAUC, AAALAC, and other related regulations.
- This program is not intended to promote or otherwise encourage unapproved, uncleared use of products or any product for unapproved new use.
- This program in no way promotes or purports to encourage any research that is not in compliance with any local, federal, or other applicable governing laws.
Statement of Independence
- Cureus Publishing Competitions are intended to encourage medical discovery and 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 the sponsoring company.
- Winning articles are determined exclusively via peer review panel and community crowdsourced scoring. Neither the sponsoring company, nor Cureus, can determine the competition outcome.

Awards
A single $3,000 USD Cureus Scientific Excellence™ prize will be awarded to the published article that receives the highest Cureus SIQ™ (Scholarly Impact Quotient™) rating. Awards include either a cash distribution or equivalent donation made to the winning article author's charity of choice.
Subsequent to a formal editorial and peer review, published articles undergo SIQ scoring – Cureus’ unique crowdsourced, secondary peer-review process. In addition to measuring engagement, SIQ allows the community-at-large to rate the scientific impact and quality of individual articles. Reviewers assign ratings 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.
As engagement and ratings are critical to winning, authors are highly encouraged to share their published articles via social media and email.

Key Dates
- Tuesday, August 29, 2017 – Competition announced
- Tuesday, November 28, 2017 – Article submission deadline
- Tuesday, January 2, 2018 – Peer review of all eligible articles concludes
- Tuesday, February 6, 2018 – Competition crowdsourced review (SIQ) concludes
- Thursday, February 8, 2018 – Winning article announced