Ethical Responsibility and confidentiality

If the work involves the use of human subjects, the author should ensure that the described work was carried out in accordance with the Code of Ethics of the World Medical Association (Helsinki Declaration) for experiments with humans. The manuscript should be consistent with the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals and aim at the inclusion of representative human populations (gender, age and ethnicity) in accordance with these recommendations. The terms sex and gender should be used correctly.
The authors should include in the manuscript a statement that a consent form has been obtained for experiments with human subjects. The personal rights of persons must always be observed.

All animal testing should comply with the ARRIVE guidelines and be conducted in accordance with the U.K. Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act, 1986 and related guidelines, EU Directive 2010/63/EU on animal testing, or the National Research Council’s Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals and the authors should clearly indicate in the manuscript that these guidelines have been followed. Also, sex of the animals must be indicated.

Although retrospective studies are conducted on already available data or biological material (for which formal consent may not be needed or is difficult to obtain) ethics approval may be required dependent on the law and the national ethical guidelines of a country. Authors should check with their institution to make sure they are complying with the specific requirements of their country.

The authors should include in the manuscript a statement that a consent form has been obtained for experiments with human subjects. The personal rights of persons must always be observed.

In the case of an authorship dispute during peer review or after acceptance and publication, the Journal will not be in a position to investigate or adjudicate. Authors will be asked to resolve the dispute themselves. If they are unable the Journal reserves the right to withdraw a manuscript from the editorial process or in case of a published paper raise the issue with the authors’ institution(s) and abide by its guideline.

Authors should treat all communication with the Journal as confidential which includes correspondence with direct representatives from the Journal such as Editors-in-Chief and/or Handling Editors and reviewers’ reports unless explicit consent has been received to share information.

To ensure the integrity of the reporting of patient-centered trials, authors must register prospective clinical trials (phase II to IV trials) in suitable publicly available repositories. For example www.clinicaltrials.gov or any of the primary registries that participate in the WHO International Clinical Trials Registry Platform.

The trial registration number (TRN) and date of registration should be included as the last line of the manuscript abstract.

For clinical trials that have not been registered prospectively, authors are encouraged to register retrospectively to ensure the complete publication of all results. The trial registration number (TRN), date of registration and the words ‘retrospectively registered’ should be included as the last line of the manuscript abstract.