Conflicts of Interest

Authors must disclose any financial and personal support or interest that may be recognized and determine the representation or interpretation of reported research results. Potential conflicts of interest include employment, consultation, ownership, honorarium, patent application, testimony, etc.  Any project funded by the industry must pay special attention to the full declaration of funder involvement. If there is no role, please state the sponsors had no role in the design, execution, recognition, or writing of the study.  According to The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), authors should avoid signing into any agreements with study sponsors, both for-profit and non-profit, that interface with the author’s access to all of the study’s data or that interface with their ability and interpretation of data and publish manuscripts independently when they select. 

 The conflicts/competing interest statement should be included in the manuscript and will be published in the final article. If no competing interests are involved, the authors should state:

Conflicts of Interest: The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

For more details, visit ICMJE's policy on competing interests.