Conflict of Interest Statement
The author is responsible for disclosing any financial support or benefit that might affect the content of the manuscript or might cause a conflict of interest. When submitting the manuscript, the author must attach the letter of conflict of  interest  statement (download coi-statement.docx). Examples of potential conflicts of interest are financial support from or connections to companies, political pressure from interest groups, and academically related issues. In particular, all sources of funding applicable to the study should be explicitly stated.

 

Statement of Human and Animal Rights
Clinical research should be conducted in accordance with the World Medical Association’s Declaration of Helsinki (https://www.wma.net/what-we-do/medical-ethics/declaration-of-helsinki). Clinical studies that do not meet the Helsinki Declaration will not be considered for publication. For human subjects, identifiable information, such as patients’ names, initials, hospital numbers, dates of birth, and other protected health care information, should not be disclosed. For animal subjects, research should be performed based on the National or Institutional Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals. The ethical treatment of all experimental animals should be maintained.

 

Statement of Informed Consent
Subjects must have been properly instructed and have indicated that they consent to participate by signing the appropriate informed consent paperwork. Authors may be asked to submit a blank, sample copy of a subject consent form. If consent was verbal instead of written, or if consent could not be obtained, the authors must explain the reason in the manuscript, and the use of verbal consent or the lack of consent must have been approved by the ethics committee. More information about patient privacy, anonymity, and informed consent can be found in the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) Privacy and Confidentiality guidelines.