Helsinki Declaration. All investigators should ensure that the planning conduct and reporting of human research are in accordance with the Helsinki Declaration. All authors should seek approval to conduct research from an independent local, regional, or national review body (e.g., ethics committee, institutional review board). If doubt exists whether the research was conducted in accordance with the Helsinki Declaration, the authors must explain the rationale for their approach and demonstrate that the local, regional, or national review body explicitly approved the doubtful aspects of the study. 

Patient consent and anonymity. Patients have a right to privacy that should not be violated without informed consent. Identifying information, including names, initials, or hospital numbers, should not be published in written descriptions, photographs, or pedigrees unless the information is essential for scientific purposes and the patient (or parent or guardian) gives written informed consent for publication. Informed consent for this purpose requires that an identifiable patient be shown the manuscript to be published. Authors should disclose to these patients whether any potential identifiable material might be available via the Internet as well as in print after publication. Patient consent should be written and archived with the authors. When informed consent has been obtained, it should be indicated in the published article. 

Experiments on Animals. When reporting experiments on animals, authors should indicate whether institutional and national standards for the care and use of laboratory animals were followed. Further guidance on animal research ethics is available from the International Association of Veterinary Editors’ Consensus Author Guidelines on Animal Ethics and Welfare.

Clinical trials. Clinical trials must be registered before the start of patient enrollment in public trials registry at or before the time of first patient enrollment as a condition of consideration for publication. The trial registration number must be reported in the paper.