Research Ethics Statement
When reporting studies on human beings, authors should indicate whether the procedures are in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional or regional) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2000 (available at http://www.wma.net/e/policy/17-c_e.html). For prospective studies involving human subjects, authors are expected to mention about approval of regional/national/institutional or independent Ethics Committee or Review Board, obtaining informed consent from adult research participants. The age beyond which assent would be required can vary as per regional and/or national guidelines. Please ensure confidentiality of subjects by desisting from mentioning participants’ names, initials or hospital numbers, especially in illustrative material.
Evidence for approval by a local Ethics Committee must be supplied by the authors on demand. The journal will not consider any paper which is ethically unacceptable. A statement on ethics committee permission and ethical practices must be included in all research articles under the “Methods” section.