Conflict of Interest, Human and Animal Rights, and Informed Consent
Ethics And Informed Consent
Authors of manuscripts describing research with human subjects must obtain approval (or review and waiver) from the lead organization’s Institutional Review Board (IRB) and adhere to the Declaration of Helsinki guidelines. A statement of IRB approval or waiver must be included in the Methods section and/or in the submission cover letter. Informed consent for publication is not needed if the patient(s) cannot be identified from any material in a manuscript. All identifying information should be omitted. For more information, please see https://ori.hhs.gov/human-subject-research and the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE, https://publicationethics.org/guidance) guidelines. For research involving human subjects, informed consent to participate in the study must be obtained from participants (or their parent or legal guardian in the case of minors under the age of 16 years). A statement on informed consent should be included in the Methods section of the manuscript and/or in the submission cover letter. Authors of studies involving animals must obtain prior approval from their Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) or equivalent ethics committee(s). A statement of approval must be included in the Methods section and/or in the submission cover letter. Case studies or reviews including individual case information must omit any identifying information. Photographs or images of patient body parts or procedures must include a written waiver of consent from the patient or next of kin submitted as a supplementary file with the manuscript. Photographs including faces will not be accepted regardless of manuscript topic.
Conflicts of Interest
A Conflict of Interest is defined as conditions in which a primary interest, such as the accuracy and validity of research findings, may be influenced by a secondary interest, such as personal or financial gain. Authors should follow ICMJE recommendations to determine any conflicts of interest (https://www.icmje.org/recommendations/). Any conflicts of interest related to the submission should be included and explained in the Conflict of Interest portion of the manuscript submission process.
