Informed consent and patient details
Studies on patients or volunteers require ethics committee approval and informed consent, which
should be documented in the paper. Appropriate consents, permissions and releases must be obtained
where an author wishes to include case details or other personal information or images of patients and
any other individuals in an Elsevier publication. Written consents must be retained by the author and
copies of the consents or evidence that such consents have been obtained must be provided to Elsevier
on request. For more information, please review the Elsevier Policy on the Use of Images or Personal
Information of Patients or other Individuals, http://www.elsevier.com/patient-consent-policy. Unless
you have written permission from the patient (or, where applicable, the next of kin), the personal
details of any patient included in any part of the article and in any supplementary materials (including
all illustrations and videos) must be removed before submission.
Conflict of interest
All authors must disclose any financial and personal relationships with other people or
organizations that could influence their work. Examples of potential conflicts of interest include
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registrations, and grants or other funding. If there are no conflicts of interest then please
state this: 'Conflicts of interest: none'. See also http://www.elsevier.com/conflictsofinterest.
Further information and an example of a Conflict of Interest form can be found at:
http://service.elsevier.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/286/supporthub/publishing.
Potential conflicts of interest do not necessarily preclude publication and authors are advised to err
on the side of transparency and openness in declaring any relevant relationships