Ethical principles

The Revista de Ecocardiografía Práctica y Otras Técnicas de Imagen Cardíaca (RETIC) is a scientific publication created by the  Sociedad Española de Imagen Cardíaca (SEIC), the Sociedad de Imágenes Cardiovasculares de la Sociedad Interamericana de Cardiología (SISIAC) and the Grupo Editorial CTOagree to clearly establish their commitment to the ethical standards of scientific publications that are currently considered to be in force.  For these reasons, RETIC gathers from the literature the main published manifestations that make ethical commitment one of its most evident values.

The research carried out by the authors must be in accordance with the guidelines of the Declaration of Helsinki and the standards of good clinical practice, as well as the legislation in force.

 

INFORMED CONSENT

In any clinical study, the authors should inform that they have the authorization of the corresponding ethics committee, as well as written informed consent.

For the publication of clinical cases, the authors must have the patient's authorization to publish the case and must ensure that no data from the case can make it recognizable. Photographs should be non-identifying and written authorization from the patient for the publication of such photographs should be included.

One of the defining characteristics of clinical cases in general is their individuality. As much as their reproducibility makes them useful for the formation and drawing of conclusions that allow the recognition of clinical behaviors applicable to new subjects; therein lies the social and scientific benefit of their discovery and their application in diagnosis and their therapeutic correspondence.

However, this very individuality and the local vulnerability of the computerized documentary storage service systems mean that clinical cases can be more identifiable with their protagonists than those included in larger series.

These characteristics make it necessary, from the point of view of the possibility of identification and, for the sake of impeccable bioethical behavior, to make a greater effort to guarantee the protection of individual data that would make it possible to identify individuals.

For this reason, the journal will require the following conditions from the authors of the cases it publishes:

Authors must possess and keep in their possession the corresponding informed consent for publication; that is, they must have collected and filed the informed consents of all the subjects studied and declare in the manuscript that they have them.

The authors should at all times respect the right to privacy of the subjects and anonymize the information/images to guarantee the protection of personal data.

 

CONFLICT OF INTEREST

Authors must declare all conflicts of interest in the form of family, personal or financial relationships that could be related to the results of the article. In the manuscript submission process, the corresponding author will be responsible for declaring all conflicts of interest related to the article in a specific section intended for this purpose. If there are no conflicts of interest, the authors should also declare them. If the manuscript is accepted, this information will be included in the final article, in the section entitled Conflict of Interest.

The journal adheres to the latest version of the rules of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, which extends conflicts of interest to authors' family members and persons living with them.

 

SOURCE OF FUNDING

The authors should indicate the financial and material support that the study may have received, and indicate the organization, agency, institution or company, and the number of the project, agreement or contract. They should also briefly describe the role played by these sponsors in the design of the study, the collection, analysis and interpretation of the data, the writing of the article or the decision to submit the article for publication. In the absence of external funding, this should also be stated. If the manuscript is accepted, this information will be included in the final article, in the section entitled Source of Funding.