Conflict of interest & Informed consent

Conflict of interest disclosure

All manuscripts must include a detailed statement disclosing any relationships that constitute, or could be perceived as constituting, a conflict of interest, even if not directly related to the content of the manuscript. This information may be taken into account by the editor in the decision-making process.

Examples of potential financial conflicts of interest include: current or recent employment, consultancy roles, stock ownership, membership on boards of directors, honoraria, paid expert testimony, filed or pending patents, and travel funding, provided they occurred within the three years prior to the start of the study. If no conflicts of interest exist, this must be explicitly stated.

In addition, if any of the authors declare a conflict of interest, they must complete the ICMJE Conflict of Interest Disclosure Form, as recommended by the ICMJE. The form is available at the following link: https://www.icmje.org/disclosure-of-interest/.

If the article is accepted for publication, the declared conflicts of interest will be included in the final version of the manuscript under a dedicated section titled “Conflicts of Interest”, in order to ensure transparency and editorial integrity.

 

Informed consent

Authors must obtain informed consent from all individuals (or their legal guardian or authorized representative) who participated in the study. This consent must have been obtained in advance, properly archived, and explicitly declared in the manuscript. Authors are also responsible for fully safeguarding participants’ privacy by ensuring that all data and images are anonymized to protect personal information. Accordingly, the manuscript must not include any details that could lead to the identification of patients or study participants, such as names, initials, medical record numbers, dates of birth, or other personal identifiers. The publication of patient or participant images is only permitted when such images are essential to the scientific purpose of the manuscript and when explicit informed consent has been obtained.