Ethics
Competing Interests—Authors are required to declare any competing interests that may be perceived as contributing to potential bias. Examples include funding for a research program or employment by, consulting for, or stocks/shares in an organization that could be financially affected by the publication of a paper, as well as patents or patent applications whose value may be affected by the publication of the paper. Authors are required to provide a statement listing any competing interests that is published alongside their article.
Protection of Human Subjects and Animals in Research—All work using human subjects and animals must be performed in accordance with the ethical standards of the relevant institutional and national committees for such matters and the WMS Declaration of Helsinki on ethical principles for medical research. For work using animals, authors are urged to follow the ARRIVE guidelines drawn up by NC3RS. Authors are required to provide details of the institutional review boards (IRBs) and any other relevant committees that approved all studies using human participants.
Informed Consent—It is the authors’ responsibility to inform patients about and obtain consent for the research performed and publication of the results. All nonessential identifying information should be omitted from the manuscript. Where identifying information, such as patients’ eyes, must be shown, authors must obtain written informed consent for publication from the patient or their legal guardian. The journal only allows inclusion of identifying images if it deems they are essential to support the conclusions of the paper. The authors must also obtain consent for any deposits of genomic and/or other potentially identifying data made in publicly accessible databases. Authors are required to provide a signed statement confirming that any necessary consents required by law have been received from all research participants/patients and archived.
