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Ethics and consent |
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| | Post date: 2026/02/10 | |
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Ethics Approval
Research involving human participants, human biological material, or human data must comply with the Declaration of Helsinki and receive approval from an appropriate ethics committee. Manuscripts reporting such research must include a statement specifying the name of the ethics committee and the approval reference number. If an exemption was granted, the manuscript must detail this, including the name of the committee that issued the exemption. Supporting documentation must be provided to the Editor upon request. Manuscripts may be rejected if the research is deemed unethical, and the Editor may contact the ethics committee for further information.
Retrospective Approval
Retrospective ethics approval is generally not permissible. Manuscripts concerning research that commenced without prior ethics committee approval will typically not be considered for peer review. Any decision to proceed with review in such cases rests entirely with the Editor's discretion.
New Clinical Procedures or Tools
When reporting the use of a new procedure or tool in a clinical setting (e.g., as a technical advance or case report), authors must provide a clear justification in the manuscript for its use over standard practice, based on the patient's clinical needs. This justification is waived if the procedure is already approved for clinical use at the authors' institution. Ethics committee approval and informed patient consent are required for any experimental use of a novel procedure where a clear clinical advantage was not established prior to treatment.
Informed Consent
For all research involving human participants, informed consent must be obtained from participants (or from a parent/legal guardian for participants under 16). A statement confirming this must appear in the manuscript.
Studies involving vulnerable groups (e.g., unconscious patients) or where there is potential for coercion (e.g., prisoners) or where consent may not be fully informed will be evaluated at the Editor's discretion and may undergo additional review by an internal oversight group.
Consent is required for the use of any personally identifiable data, including biomedical, clinical, and biometric data. For human transplantation studies, authors must include a statement affirming that no organs/tissues were obtained from prisoners and must identify the source institutions/clinics. Documentary evidence of consent must be provided upon request.
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