Recommendations for Writing Clinical Research Manuscripts: From Monofocal to Multifocal Intraocular Lenses

Abstract

Writing a manuscript is not an easy task, and publishing in peer-reviewed journals might prove difficult if the methodology is not appropriately described and results are not clearly presented. Fortunately, researchers have tools that can assist in creating a wellwritten manuscript. For example, reporting guidelines are used by researchers to write a manuscript. These specify the minimum amount of information necessary for a clear account of research methods and findings to prevent the common pitfalls that investigators may experience during manuscript writing. The EQUATOR network manages an important database (https://www.equator-network.org/ (accessed on 15 December 2022) containing universal guidelines depending on study design and regardless of study topic [1]. However, for specific topics, such as for intraocular lens (IOL) clinical studies, merely following reporting guidelines may not be enough to produce a well-written manuscript. For example, although researchers can follow the CONSORT checklist for reporting the results of a randomized clinical trial, this checklist is focused on general characteristics; therefore, important points for a specific topic may go unnoticed by the researcher during the writing process. To complement these general guidelines, exploring specialized standards for a particular topic can improve manuscript writing. Regarding IOL clinical studies, standards for reporting clinical results with monofocal IOLs were coined in 2017 [2], and recently these have been updated for presbyopia-correcting IOLs, namely enhanced monofocal, extended depth-of-focus (EDOF), and multifocal IOLs [3]. Furthermore, standards have been defined for assessing prediction errors in spherical and toric IOL power calculation methods [4,5]. All these standards should be reviewed together with the universal reporting guidelines to create a well-written manuscript. In this editorial, we also provide a checklist (Table 1) that extends and complements the previously described guidelines and standards.