Statement of Informed Consent

We follow the rules approved by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). (Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals).

"Patients have a right to privacy that should not be infringed without informed consent. Identifying information, including patients' names, initials, or hospital numbers, should not be published in written descriptions, photographs, and pedigrees unless the information is essential for scientific purposes and the patient (or parent or guardian) gives written informed consent for publication. Informed consent for this purpose requires that an identifiable patient be shown the manuscript to be published. Authors should identify Individuals who provide writing assistance and disclose the funding source for this assistance. Identifying details should be omitted if they are not essential. Complete anonymity is difficult to achieve, however, and informed consent should be obtained if there is any doubt. For example, masking the eye region in photographs of patients is inadequate protection of anonymity. If identifying characteristics are altered to protect anonymity, such as in genetic pedigrees, authors should ensure that alterations do not distort scientific meaning, and editors should so note. The requirement for informed consent should be included in the journal's instructions for authors. When informed consent has been obtained, it should be indicated in the published article."

Journal requirements for independent data analysis and public data availability are in flux at the time of this revision, reflecting evolving views of the importance of data availability for pre- and post-publication peer review. Editors of "Biotechnologia Acta" currently request a statistical analysis of trial data by an independent biostatistician before accepting studies for publication and ask authors to say whether the study data are available to third parties to view and/or use/reanalyze.

Editorial decisions are based on the relevance of a manuscript to the journal and the manuscript’s originality, quality, and contribution to evidence about important questions. Those decisions are not under the influence of commercial interests, personal relationships or agendas, or findings that are negative or that credibly challenge accepted wisdom. In addition, authors should submit for publication or otherwise make publicly available, and editors should not exclude from consideration for publication studies with findings that are not statistically significant or that have inconclusive findings. Such studies may provide evidence, that combined with that from other studies through meta-analysis, might still help answer essential questions, and a public record of such harmful or inconclusive findings may prevent unwarranted replication of effort or otherwise be valuable for other researchers considering similar work.