JMIR Cancer Opens Call for Breast Cancer Research to Mark Awareness Month

Breast cancer remains one of the most frequently diagnosed malignancies in the world, and the clinical and scientific community continues to search for better ways to detect it earlier, treat it more precisely, and support patients long after active treatment ends. This October, in recognition of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, JMIR Cancer, the peer-reviewed open access journal published by JMIR Publications, has issued a formal call for submissions to a dedicated theme collection focused on breast cancer. The invitation extends to original research articles, viewpoints, and clinical submissions, and it is aimed squarely at the intersection of oncology and digital health innovation, an area that has grown rapidly in both scientific interest and practical importance over the past decade.

JMIR Cancer is an open access, peer-reviewed journal indexed in PubMed Central, PubMed, MEDLINE, Scopus, DOAJ, and the Emerging Sources Citation Index maintained by Clarivate. That indexing footprint places the journal within the core literature that oncologists, health services researchers, and digital health scientists consult when tracking how technology is reshaping cancer care. The new theme collection is intended to gather work that evaluates how technological, educational, and participatory innovations can improve screening accuracy, streamline treatment protocols, optimize teleoncology workflows, and enhance long-term survivorship. In practical terms, the editors are looking for studies that do more than describe a new app or algorithm; they want evidence about whether and how these tools change measurable outcomes for patients and health systems.

The scope of the call is deliberately broad, reflecting the reality that digital health now touches nearly every stage of the breast cancer care continuum. Among the high-impact areas the journal highlights are mobile health applications designed to monitor treatment side effects, artificial intelligence and machine learning models for risk prediction and mammography analysis, virtual decision-support tools that assist clinicians and patients in shared decision-making, and digital platforms targeting post-treatment fatigue and psychosocial well-being. Each of these domains represents an active research frontier. Mobile applications, for example, can capture symptom reports in near real time between clinic visits, giving oncology teams earlier warning of chemotherapy toxicity or post-operative complications. Machine learning models applied to mammography have demonstrated the potential to flag subtle imaging patterns that human readers may miss, while risk prediction tools increasingly incorporate diverse data streams to stratify patients for enhanced surveillance.

Teleoncology has emerged as another central theme of the collection. The rapid expansion of remote care delivery in recent years transformed how many patients access oncology consultations, follow-up visits, and supportive care services, but questions about efficacy, equity, and patient experience remain active areas of investigation. The journal is explicitly inviting evaluations of the effectiveness and patient experience of telehealth and remote monitoring in breast cancer care, a request that signals interest in rigorous comparative studies rather than anecdotal reports. Researchers examining video consultations, remote symptom tracking, wearable sensor data, and hybrid models of care that blend in-person and virtual encounters will find their work squarely within the scope of the theme collection.

Education and support represent a third pillar of the call. The editors welcome submissions on novel educational platforms, virtual reality training for clinicians, and online support communities for patients and families. Virtual reality and simulation-based training have gained traction in surgical and procedural education, offering trainees opportunities to rehearse complex tasks without risk to patients. Online communities, meanwhile, have become a lifeline for many people navigating a breast cancer diagnosis, providing peer support, information exchange, and a sense of shared experience that complements formal clinical care. Studies that evaluate the reach, engagement, and clinical or psychological impact of these platforms are of particular interest to the journal’s readership.

Notably, the call does not limit itself to internet-based technologies. JMIR Cancer is also encouraging evaluations of non-internet, offline, and community-based participatory interventions designed to reduce disparities and broaden equitable access to breast cancer screening and survivorship programs. This emphasis acknowledges a persistent challenge in digital health research: the populations who stand to benefit most from improved screening and survivorship support are often those with the least reliable connectivity, the lowest digital literacy, or the greatest structural barriers to care. Offline strategies, community health worker programs, and participatory approaches that co-design interventions with the people they serve can reach patients whom purely digital solutions may leave behind. By welcoming this work alongside cutting-edge technology evaluations, the journal is signaling that equity of access is as much a part of the digital health conversation as the technology itself.

Perhaps the most distinctive element of the call is the journal’s special invitation to patients themselves. Under the heading of the Patients’ Corner, JMIR Cancer is encouraging patients with breast cancer, previvors, and survivors to submit original viewpoints and personal narratives. The journal states that it believes the most vital voices in oncology are those of the patients, and the invitation covers a wide range of lived-experience content: individual experiences with therapeutic regimens, navigation across healthcare systems, experiences using digital health tools including teleoncology solutions and mobile applications, and constructive perspectives on how breast cancer clinical workflows and patient care can be enhanced. In a research landscape where patient engagement is increasingly recognized as essential to meaningful science, giving patients a formal publication venue for first-person accounts is a concrete step toward elevating those voices.

The accessibility of that invitation is reinforced by a significant financial provision: submissions to the Patients’ Corner are entirely exempt from article processing fees. Article processing charges are a well-known barrier for authors who lack institutional funding, and this is especially true for patients writing outside of academic employment. By waiving these fees entirely for the Patients’ Corner, the journal is removing a practical obstacle that might otherwise prevent patients from sharing their perspectives with a global readership of researchers and clinicians. The stated goal is to ensure there are no barriers to contributing these invaluable viewpoints to the scientific record.

The timing of the call aligns with Breast Cancer Awareness Month, an annual campaign each October that has historically driven public attention, fundraising, and screening promotion around the disease. For a journal focused on the digital transformation of health care, the awareness month provides a natural moment to consolidate research on how technology can serve patients across the entire continuum of care, from risk assessment and screening through diagnosis, treatment, and the often-overlooked survivorship phase. The editors’ framing emphasizes that integration of digital health, innovative technology, and patient-centered strategies is essential across that full continuum, not merely at the point of diagnosis or during active treatment.

Researchers, clinicians, computational scientists, and health care leaders interested in contributing to the theme collection can find the full call for papers and submission details on the JMIR Cancer website, where the dedicated breast cancer theme section is hosted. JMIR Publications, the journal’s publisher, describes itself as a leading open access publisher of digital health research and a champion of open science, with a portfolio of peer-reviewed journals that includes the renowned Journal of Medical Internet Research. For investigators working at the boundary of oncology and technology, and for patients whose experiences can illuminate where that technology succeeds and where it falls short, the call represents an open door to a journal that has made the meeting of those two worlds its central mission.

Subject of Research: A call for breast cancer research submissions to JMIR Cancer's digital health theme collection during Breast Cancer Awareness Month

Article Title: JMIR Publications’ JMIR Cancer invites submissions on breast cancer

Article References: JMIR Publications’ JMIR Cancer invites submissions on breast cancer. (n.d.). Original publication

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: Not provided

Keywords: breast cancer, JMIR Cancer, digital health, teleoncology, artificial intelligence, mHealth, mammography, survivorship, patient narratives, open access, Breast Cancer Awareness Month, health equity