For all manuscripts reporting data from studies involving human participants, a formal review and approval, or formal review and waiver by an appropriate institutional review board or ethics committee is required, and should be described in the Methods section. For investigators who do not have a formal ethics review committee (institutional or regional), the principles outlined in the Declaration of Helsinki must be followed (as revised in Fortaleza 2024).

The Declaration of Helsinki (DoH) is the World Medical Association’s (WMA) best-known policy statement. The first version was adopted in 1964 and has been amended seven times since, most recently at the General Assembly in October 2024. The current (2024) version is the only official one; all previous versions* have been replaced and should not be used or cited except for historical purposes. Available at: https://www.wma.net/policies-post/wma-declaration-of-helsinki/.

For investigations done in humans, the Methods section must state the manner in which informed consent was obtained from the subjects (i.e. oral, or written), and whether participants received a stipend.

Clinical Trial Registry:  When publishing clinical studies, IJO aims to comply with the Recommendations of International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) on trials registration (https://www.who.int/clinical-trials-registry-platform/the-ictrp-search-portal). Therefore, authors are requested to register the clinical trial presented in the manuscript in a public trials registry, and include the trial registration number in the Methods Section.

If experimental animals were used in the research, IJO requires that authors confirm adherence to the ARVO Statement for the Use of Animals in Ophthalmic and Vision Research in the Methods section of their manuscript.