Informed Consent
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Studies involving human participants must have been approved by an appropriate ethics committee and conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. Written informed consent must be obtained from all participants (or their legal representatives) and this must be stated in the Methods section. Where the requirement for consent was waived by the ethics committee (e.g., retrospective studies), this must be stated together with the committee's name and approval number.
Case Reports: Consent and Anonymisation
Consent: Written informed consent for publication must be obtained from the patient (or a parent or legal guardian for minors or patients lacking capacity; next of kin for deceased patients) before submission. Every case report must include a statement confirming that consent was obtained. The editors may request a copy of the signed consent form.
Anonymisation: Case reports must not contain information that could identify the patient, including names, initials, hospital or record numbers, exact dates, or identifiable images. Clinical images must be cropped or masked. Masking the eye region alone is not considered sufficient for facial photographs; identifiable photographs require explicit consent for their publication.
Reporting: Case reports should follow the CARE guidelines and should be identified as "case report" in the title.