Ethics committee approval

The journal follows the Declaration of Helsinki for human research and ARRIVE guidelines for animal studies. All research must be ethical by the standards of both the authors’ institution and international norms.

Human subjects research:

  • Requires IRB (Institutional Review Board) or IEC (Independent Ethics Committee) approval before study commencement.

  • Manuscript must include: protocol number, approval date, and name of approving committee.

  • For retrospective studies without prospective approval, authors must provide a waiver from the IRB.

Animal research:

  • Must comply with ARRIVE 2.0 guidelines (Essential 10 items are mandatory).

  • Authors must state ethical approval number from institutional animal care committee.

  • Studies involving pain or distress without analgesia/sedation will be rejected.

Clinical trials:

  • Must be prospectively registered before participant enrollment begins.

  • Approved registries: Iranian Registry of Clinical Trials (IRCT) or ClinicalTrials.gov.

  • Registration number must appear in the abstract.

  • Phase I trials require the same standard as Phase III.

Automatic rejection (no exceptions):

  • Any study involving humans or animals that lacks ethics approval

  • Studies claiming “exempt” without documentation of exemption

  • Retrospective registration of clinical trials

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