Quality Checklist for Medical Imaging AI Reviews

This checklist runs at multiple checkpoints — end of each section, end of each writing day, before peer-review phase, before submission.

v3 changes from v2: Dropped "hedging language used", "80-120 references", and format-only metric checks. Replaced with substance checks (citation integrity, conclusion direction, verdict presence, structural discipline).

Citation Integrity (Hard Gate)

These are non-negotiable. Any failure must be fixed before continuing.

No placeholder DOIs (grep xxx, [TBD], x):xxx)
Every reference's first and last author verified against first-source
Body↔bibliography [N] reconciliation — spot-check 10 random citations per section
Every directional claim (higher/lower, increased/decreased) verified against source
No vendor white papers cited as if peer-reviewed
No duplicate references (same paper listed under two numbers)

See CITATION_INTEGRITY.md for the full 5-rule protocol.

Structural Discipline

Heading depth ≤ 2 levels (H2 + H3 only in body)
No numbered headings (no ## 1., ### 1.1)
H4 (####) absent from body — deeper grouping via bold lead-in **Topic.**
§Methods uses 3-axis grouping (Architectural / Inductive / Data regime), not flat 10-subsection list
Verdict sentences present in 3-5 places (not on every paragraph, not absent entirely)
Key Points box has 4-5 bullets, 1-3 sentences each
Standard sections present: Introduction / Methods / Applications / Translation / Discussion (names may vary, structure fixed)

Voice and Register

No "has shown promising results" / "may suggest" / "interestingly" / "in recent years," / "it is worth noting" anywhere
Hedging used only when evidence genuinely supports caution, not as default register
Strong findings (≥2 independent groups confirming) stated strongly
Each major method axis (3 axes in §Methods) closes with a verdict sentence
No "neutral catalogue" stretches longer than 3 paragraphs without a verdict / position

Equations and Boxes

Display equations ($$...$$) appear only in Boxes, not in body paragraphs
Textbook formulas (DSC, IoU, FedAvg) handled in prose if not in Box 1, not displayed inline
Box 1 (metrics) present and complete
Total Box count appropriate for target journal (typically 1-3)

Vendor Names

No vendor name (HeartFlow, Cleerly, Caristo, Keya, Shukun, etc.) appears in body paragraph
All vendor names appear in Table 3 (Commercial Products) only

[ ] Body uses category descriptors with table cross-reference

# Quick check
for name in HeartFlow Cleerly Caristo "Keya Medical" "Shukun Technology"; do
grep -n "$name" manuscript_draft.md | grep -v "| $name |"
done
# Expected: 0 hits per name

Tables

Table 1: Public datasets (year, cases, annotation type, access)
Table 2: Method comparison (modality / family / dataset / metric — pick 12-20 papers)
Table 3: Commercial products with regulatory evidence
Total tables ≤ 4 (typical flagship reviews stay at 2-3)
Each table has a title, body, and footnote explaining abbreviations / caveats

Figures

Figure 1: Review overview / taxonomy
Figure 2: Representative architectures or method evolution
Figure 3: Clinical workflow or downstream applications
Figure 4: Data-driven plot (e.g., performance landscape, trial effect sizes)
All figures have ≤ 100-word captions following Nature style: bold lead-in title sentence + body sentences
No [Figure placeholder] strings before submission

Content Coverage

All major method axes covered (Architectural / Inductive / Data regime)
Negative trials included where they exist (LLM bias: only positive)
Inter-vendor reproducibility / cross-site validation discussed where relevant
Demographic bias / fairness considerations addressed where relevant
Controversies and unresolved questions engaged, not glossed
Future directions specific and actionable (not "more research is needed" platitudes)

Self-check Commands

# Numbered headings
grep -cE "^#{2,4} [0-9]" manuscript_draft.md
# Expected: 0

# Heading depth violation
grep -c "^#### " manuscript_draft.md
# Expected: 0

# Placeholder DOIs
grep -c "xxx\|x):xxx\|\[TBD\]" manuscript_draft.md
# Expected: 0

# LLM tell phrases
for tell in "has shown promising" "may suggest" "interestingly," "in recent years," "it is worth noting"; do
  echo "=== $tell ==="
  grep -nF "$tell" manuscript_draft.md
done
# Expected: 0 per tell

# Vendor names in body
for vendor in HeartFlow Cleerly Caristo; do
  count=$(grep -c "$vendor" manuscript_draft.md)
  in_table=$(grep "| $vendor " manuscript_draft.md | wc -l)
  echo "$vendor: total $count, in table $in_table, in body $((count - in_table))"
done
# Expected: in body == 0 for each

# Inline equations
grep -n '\$\$' manuscript_draft.md
# All hits should be inside Box context (check 2 lines before)

# Verdict-sentence presence
grep -nE "currently the most|has yet to demonstrate|best understood as|next [0-9]+ years will" manuscript_draft.md
# Expected: ≥ 3 hits

# Citation count (no quantity target — but useful for sanity)
grep -cE "^[0-9]+\." manuscript_draft.md
# Use as input for body↔bib reconciliation

What's NOT on this checklist (intentional removals from v2)

❌ "Hedging language used" — was actively harmful; hedging-by-default is the LLM tell, not the flagship-review voice
❌ "80-120 references" — was driving Claude to pad the bibliography, which encouraged fabrication
❌ "Performance metrics consistent (Dice: 0.XXX format)" — checking format ≠ checking correctness
❌ "All major methods covered" — was driving exhaustive enumeration over selective synthesis
❌ "Recent literature included (>50% from last 3 years)" — date-based filter has no relationship to quality

These were structural illusions of quality. They've been replaced with substantive checks above.

Severity Levels for Failures

When a checklist item fails during writing:

Severity	Examples	Action
CRITICAL	Placeholder DOI, wrong-author list on real paper, citation direction flipped	STOP and fix immediately. These are reviewer-facing trust-killers.
HIGH	Body↔bib drift, vendor name in body, verdict absent in axis section	Fix before completing the current section.
MEDIUM	Heading numbered, equation inline	Fix at section end.
LOW	Multi-citation bracket > 4 refs, table > 20 rows	Note and address during peer-review phase.

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