Competing Interests Policy

COI may arise from financial relationships, academic commitments, personal relationships, political or religious beliefs, and institutional affiliations.

Authors are required to disclose all competing interests during manuscript submission. Reviewers and editors must also disclose potential conflicts when agreeing to review or handle manuscripts.

Reviewers and editors with competing interests will be excluded from the review and editorial process.

All competing interests must be clearly declared on the manuscript title page.

Further information:

ICMJE Recommendations
COPE Competing Interests
WAME Conflict of Interest Policy

Ethical Approval

Publications expect authors, reviewers, and editors to maintain the highest ethical standards during research, submission, peer review, and publication.

Publications follow ethical principles established by COPE, WAME, and ICMJE and require compliance with international reporting standards.

Statement of Ethics Approval

All submitted manuscripts must include an ethics approval statement or explain why approval was not applicable.

• Ethics approval number or ID must be provided.
• Name of ethics committee or institutional review board must be mentioned.
• Authors must confirm informed consent was obtained from participants.
• Editors may request additional ethical information when required.

Human and Animal Ethics

Studies involving humans must include evidence that informed consent was obtained and that research protocols comply with ethical principles such as the Declaration of Helsinki.

Research involving human participants requires approval from Institutional Review Boards (IRB) or equivalent ethics committees.

Animal studies must comply with recognized laboratory animal care guidelines.

Patient Consent

Protecting patient rights and confidentiality is essential in scientific publishing.

• Participants must voluntarily sign informed consent forms.
• Study procedures and possible risks should be fully explained before consent.
• If consent cannot be obtained, data must be sufficiently anonymized.
• Permission from relatives should be obtained when deceased patients are involved.
• Anonymous medical images may be published without consent if no identifying information remains.

Medical images such as ultrasound scans, X-rays, laparoscopic images, pathology slides, or similar materials may be published only after adequate anonymization.