Submission Preparation Checklist

As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission's compliance with all of the following items, and submissions may be returned to authors that do not adhere to these guidelines.

• 1. The manuscript has not been previously published and is not under consideration by another journal.
• 2. All authors meet recognized authorship criteria (e.g., ICMJE), have approved the final version of the manuscript, and agree to its submission.
• 3. The manuscript file complies with the journal’s formatting and structural requirements as outlined in the Author Guidelines.
• 4. A structured abstract and appropriate keywords (e.g., MeSH terms where applicable) are included.
• 5. All references are formatted according to the journal’s citation style (VANCOUVER Endnote style), and DOIs are provided where available.
• 6. A Conflict of Interest statement and Funding statement are included in Title page.
• 7. Ethical approval has been obtained from an accredited Institutional Review Board (IRB) or Ethics Committee, with approval number provided where applicable.
• 8. Informed consent has been obtained from participants where required.
• 9. For clinical trials, the study has been prospectively registered in a recognized public registry, and the registration number is provided.
• 10. A Data Availability Statement is included.
• 11. Any use of generative AI tools in manuscript preparation has been transparently disclosed, where applicable.
• 12. A cover letter addressing the scope, originality, and relevance of the manuscript has been submitted.