Our Commitment to Scientific Excellence

Head and Neck Diseases Conflux's editorial policy is aligned with internationally recognized best practices endorsed by leading scientific organizations and academic associations that champion research integrity in otolaryngology and head and neck medicine. Our framework ensures that every published work meets the highest standards of scientific rigor, ethical conduct, and methodological excellence in clinical research.

We provide direct access to the full text of all guiding principles that inform our editorial decisions, promoting transparency and enabling authors to understand our expectations fully. This approach fosters a collaborative environment where scientific integrity and innovation thrive.

Head and Neck Diseases Conflux strictly adheres to the comprehensive guidelines established by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), which meticulously outline the responsibilities, contributions, and expectations for all authors and research participants involved in scientific publications.

Redundant Publication

We follow the COPE guidelines on redundant publication. Such publications are considered unethical, and manuscripts found to contain redundant content will not be considered for publication in Head and Neck Diseases Conflux.

Plagiarism

In line with COPE guidelines, Head and Neck Diseases Conflux expects all original wording taken directly from other sources to appear in quotation marks with proper citations. This rule applies equally to an author's own previous work.

Head and Neck Diseases Conflux upholds COPE's standards for ethical peer review. Should evidence arise of peer review manipulation, we will take necessary actions, including retracting the affected publication or revoking acceptance if the manuscript is still under review.

Concerns and Allegations

All concerns and allegations are investigated according to COPE guidelines. For more information on raising a concern about unethical practices in peer review, see our complaints procedure.

Authors are strongly encouraged to adhere to internationally recognized reporting guidelines. Relevant checklists should accompany submissions as supplementary materials. Reporting guidelines for various study designs can be accessed through the Equator Network website, which provides a comprehensive searchable database of guidelines and resources to enhance the quality of research reporting.

Study-Specific Guidelines

• Randomised Controlled Trials (RCTs): Follow the CONSORT guidelines including flowchart and structured abstract checklist.
• Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses: Adhere to the PRISMA guidelines including flowchart and structured abstract checklist.
• Observational Studies in Epidemiology: Use the STROBE guidelines; refer also to RECORD for studies using routinely collected health data and MOOSE guidelines.
• Animal Pre-Clinical Studies: Follow the ARRIVE guidelines.
• Web-Based Surveys: Apply the CHERRIES guidelines.
• Studies Using Data from Electronic Health Records: Refer to the CODE-EHR guidelines.
• Reporting Sex and Gender Information: Use the SAGER guidelines.
• AI/ML Studies: Follow the CONSORT-AI, SPIRIT-AI, and TRIPOD-AI guidelines for transparent reporting of AI algorithms and predictive models.
• Diagnostic Accuracy Studies Using AI: Use the STARD-AI guideline for diagnostic accuracy studies of head and neck conditions that use artificial intelligence.

Clinical Trial Definition

Head and Neck Diseases Conflux follows the World Health Organization (WHO) definition of a clinical trial: any research study that prospectively assigns human participants to one or more health-related interventions to evaluate effects on health outcomes.

Trial Registration

According to recommendations from the ICMJE, WHO, and the Declaration of Helsinki, all clinical trials submitted to Head and Neck Diseases Conflux must be registered in a WHO Registry Network Primary Registry or an ICMJE-approved registry at or before the recruitment of the first participant. Retrospectively registered trials will be rejected.

Reporting Standards

Clinical trial registration details must be included in the abstract, along with the Clinical Trials Unique Identifier, Registry Name, and URL. Changes made since registration should be reported following the CONSERVE guidelines. Unreported discrepancies may lead to manuscript rejection.

• Randomized Trials: Comply with the Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT) 25-item checklist and include a CONSORT flow diagram.
• Clinical Trials and Artificial Intelligence (AI): Adhere to the CONSORT-AI extension.
• N-of-1 Trials: Follow the CONSORT extension for N-of-1.
• Clinical Study Protocols: Register protocols publicly and follow the Standard Protocol Items: Recommendations for Interventional Trials (SPIRIT) guidelines.
• Clinical Study Protocols and AI: Conform to the Standard Protocol Items: Recommendations for Interventional Trials–Artificial Intelligence (SPIRIT-AI) extension.
• Clinical Interventions: Follow the applicable reporting guideline for the intervention studied and describe it in sufficient detail to allow replication.

For Clinical Protocols

All submissions must adhere to the Standard Protocol Items: Recommendations for Interventional Trials (SPIRIT) guidelines and checklist. For clinical trial study protocols that incorporate artificial intelligence (AI) components, authors should follow the SPIRIT-AI extension. The abstract must include the registry name, unique identifier, and URL.

Head and Neck Diseases Conflux promotes open science and open data policies, advocating for the free accessibility and transparency of research outputs. Authors are encouraged to acquaint themselves with our policies aimed at achieving high standards of data availability, transparency, and reproducibility in published articles. These policies are informed by community-driven standards such as the Transparency and Openness (TOP) guidelines and the joint declaration of data citation principles from FORCE11.

Resource Identification Initiative

Authors participating in the FORCE11 Resource Identification Initiative should cite resources such as antibodies, cell lines, model organisms, software tools, and datasets using their corresponding catalog numbers and Research Resource Identifiers (RRIDs) within their manuscript.

All research submitted to Head and Neck Diseases Conflux must comply with our guidelines on study ethics. In line with COPE guidelines, we reserve the right to reject any manuscript that does not uphold high ethical standards, regardless of whether ethical approval has been obtained or is required. We recommend authors follow the ARRIVE guidelines for conducting and reporting scientific research involving animals. For studies that draw on clinical data from head and neck practice, such as hospital records or imaging archives, we recommend authors follow established guidelines for data privacy, patient confidentiality, and the ethical use of health data.

Studies Involving Animal Subjects

Research involving regulated animals must be approved by an ethics committee before the study begins and must comply with relevant institutional and national guidelines and regulations. Head and Neck Diseases Conflux adheres to the AVMA guidelines for studies including animal research. Studies involving non-routine interventions require ethics committee oversight. Authors must provide ethics approval information upon submission, which will generate an ethics statement included in the reviewer file and final manuscript:

"The animal study was reviewed and approved by [Full name and affiliation of ethics committee]. Written informed consent was obtained from the owners for the participation of their animals in this study."

Studies involving animals should adhere to the three Rs principle and the ARRIVE guidelines. Editors may request additional documentation if experimental details deviate from common practice. Manuscripts involving unethical protocols can be rejected even with ethics committee approval. Authors should consult the AVMA guidelines for best practices regarding anesthesia and euthanasia procedures.

Studies Involving Human Participants

Human participant research must comply with the World Medical Association's Declaration of Helsinki and receive prior approval from the appropriate ethics committee. Written informed consent for participation and publication of results must be obtained from all participants. For studies using patient data, electronic health records, or health information systems, compliance with data privacy regulations (HIPAA, GDPR, or applicable regional laws) is mandatory. The ethics committee information must be provided upon submission, generating a statement for inclusion in the manuscript:

"The studies involving human participants were reviewed and approved by [Full name and affiliation of ethics committee]. The patients/participants provided their written informed consent to participate in this study."

If the study is exempt from ethics approval or consent procedures, authors must clearly state the reasons. Head and Neck Diseases Conflux may request a letter from an ethics committee if full review and approval have been waived. Identifying information should be omitted unless necessary for scientific purposes and explicit approval has been granted. All patient data must be appropriately de-identified following recognized standards.

Inclusion of Identifiable Human Data

Head and Neck Diseases Conflux follows ICMJE recommendations on protecting research participants' privacy. Nonessential identifiable details should be omitted from manuscripts, and written informed consent is required if there is any doubt about maintaining anonymity. Special attention must be paid to protecting patient privacy in head and neck research involving potentially identifying clinical data, such as facial photographs, head and neck imaging, or health records.

Editorial Board Quality

Only established researchers in otolaryngology and head and neck diseases with a documented record of peer-reviewed publication in the field are appointed as editors. Appointments are based on research standing, relevant editorial experience, and the absence of conflicts of interest that would compromise editorial decisions. Editors are expected to maintain a public record of their institutional affiliation and publication credentials, and to handle manuscripts within their area of expertise.

Editor Assignment Quality

Editors oversee the peer-review process and make the final acceptance decisions on manuscripts. Manuscripts are assigned to an editor with expertise in the relevant subject area, so that decisions are made by researchers active in that field.

The assigned editor may decline to handle a manuscript, and the Editor in Chief may reassign a manuscript to another editor before or during the review process where a conflict of interest or a competing commitment arises.

Reviewer Assignment Quality

The handling editor selects and invites the most suitable reviewers for each manuscript, drawing on the editorial board and on external reviewers with expertise in the relevant area of otolaryngology and head and neck diseases.

Independent Review Stage Quality

During the independent review stage, the assigned reviewers evaluate the manuscript independently, so that each opinion is formed without influence from the others. Reviewers are asked to assess the manuscript against the journal's review guidelines and to support their recommendations with clear, objective arguments.

Editorial Evaluation Stage Quality

The handling editor evaluates the review reports and communicates a decision to the authors, setting out the revisions required to address the reviewers' comments. Authors receive the full review reports and may respond to each point in a revision letter.

Decision Stage Quality

Acceptance requires agreement among the handling editor and the reviewers who assessed the manuscript. In line with the journal's single-anonymous peer review model, reviewer identities are not disclosed to authors.

Safeguards against Financial Conflicts of Interest

Decisions on manuscript acceptance are made by the handling editor, an active researcher who is not part of the journal's administrative staff. Editors and reviewers are not paid for their roles, and no payment or award to editors or reviewers is linked to manuscript acceptances.

Post-Publication Stage Quality

Readers may raise concerns about a published article at any time by writing to the editorial office, and all such concerns are investigated following COPE guidelines. Head and Neck Diseases Conflux maintains a retraction protocol and will retract a paper, or issue a correction or an expression of concern, when an investigation confirms ethical concerns, honest errors, or scientific misconduct.

Head and Neck Diseases Conflux adheres to the publication ethics and policies set out on this page. Below are the responsibilities of authors, reviewers, and editors. All parties involved are expected to follow the ethical practices outlined.

Editor's Responsibilities

Editors are responsible for overseeing the peer review process with fairness, timeliness, diligence, and respect:

• Ensure every submitted manuscript undergoes peer review by at least two independent reviewers with expertise in the relevant field of otolaryngology or head and neck diseases.
• Evaluate manuscripts based on academic merit, originality, and relevance to the journal's scope without regard to the author's personal attributes or affiliations.
• The editorial board makes independent decisions regarding manuscript publication, free from external government agencies' influence.
• Maintain confidentiality regarding submitted manuscripts except when communicating with potential reviewers, corresponding authors, or publishers as appropriate.
• Do not use unpublished information from manuscripts for personal research or benefit without clear written consent from the authors.
• Recuse themselves from manuscripts where they have conflicts of interest and delegate handling to another editorial member.
• Take proactive measures in cases of suspected misconduct or unethical behavior concerning submitted or published articles, even if discovered years after publication.

Reviewer's Responsibilities

Reviewers assist editors in making informed decisions and help authors improve their manuscripts through the peer review process:

• Fulfill their role responsibly by conducting reviews impartially and providing clear, objective arguments to support comments.
• Decline invitations to review manuscripts when unavailable, indisposed, or lacking sufficient expertise in the specific head and neck topic addressed by the manuscript.
• Do not share, store, or discuss manuscript-related information with outsiders without prior consent from the journal's Editorial Board.
• Report any overlapping manuscripts (published or unpublished) they are aware of to the editors.
• Recuse themselves from manuscripts where they have conflicts of interest and ensure unpublished manuscript information is not used inappropriately.

Author's Responsibilities

Authors are accountable for the data and information presented in their article, taking responsibility for the significance of their original research:

• Present authentic and original research; fraudulent, inaccurate statements, plagiarized content, or results are not tolerated.
• Submit raw materials or data along with the manuscript for review and be prepared to make this data publicly available if necessary while ensuring patient privacy and data security compliance.
• Avoid submitting identical research content or text to more than one journal and do not submit an article already published elsewhere.
• List only individuals who have made significant contributions to the article as authors, taking responsibility for the content.
• Disclose any conflict of interest that could bias the results or the manuscript and all sources of financial support for the research work, including industry partnerships, medical device manufacturers, and commercial relationships with companies whose products are evaluated in the work.
• Clearly describe the data sources, study methods, and any software tools or algorithms used in the reported research.
• Ensure studies involving patient data, electronic health records, or human participants comply with relevant laws and institutional guidelines and have approval from appropriate committees including data privacy compliance.
• Cooperate with the peer review process, including submitting required data, clarifications, ethics approval proofs, copyright permissions, data use agreements, participant or patient consents, and revising manuscripts as necessary.