Policy on the Use of Artificial Intelligence

The journal recognizes that generative artificial intelligence tools and AI-assisted technologies may be used on a limited basis as editorial support; however, their use must be transparent, responsible, and strictly subordinate to the academic, methodological, and ethical judgment of the authors.

• The use of AI tools is permitted only for minor editorial revisions, such as spelling correction, grammatical improvement, stylistic adjustment, syntactic refinement, or support in improving the linguistic clarity of a text previously prepared by the authors.

• AI must not be used to replace the conceptualization of the study, data analysis, interpretation of results, substantive drafting of the discussion, formulation of conclusions, creation of bibliographic references, fabrication of citations, falsification or generation of data, manipulation of images, or production of scientific content that cannot be verified by the authors.

• The use of AI must be disclosed at the time of submission, both in the cover letter and in the corresponding section of the manuscript. The disclosure must indicate the name of the tool used, its version whenever possible, the approximate date of use, its specific purpose, and the scope of its contribution.

• AI tools, including chatbots, language models, image generators, and automated writing systems, may not be listed as authors, co-authors, contributors, or parties bearing intellectual responsibility for the manuscript.

• The authors remain fully responsible for the accuracy, originality, integrity, methodological appropriateness, and ethical validity of all manuscript content, even when AI tools have been used for minor editorial revisions.

• Failure to disclose the use of AI, when such tools have been employed, may be regarded as an ethical omission and may result in a request for clarification, editorial correction, rejection of the manuscript, or post-publication measures, depending on the severity of the case.

• Personal data, identifiable clinical information, non-anonymized databases, medical records, interviews, patient images, peer-review reports, confidential manuscripts, or any information protected by institutional, legal, or editorial confidentiality obligations must not be entered into AI tools.

Suggested statement when AI was not used: The authors declare that they did not use generative artificial intelligence tools or AI-assisted technologies in the preparation, analysis, writing, or editing of the manuscript.

Suggested statement when AI was used in a permitted manner: The authors declare that they used [name of the tool, version if applicable] exclusively for grammatical correction, stylistic adjustment, and improvement of the linguistic clarity of the text. The scientific content, analysis, interpretation of results, conclusions, and references were prepared, reviewed, and fully validated by the authors, who assume full responsibility for the final version of the manuscript.

Use of Artificial Intelligence by Reviewers and Editors

Reviewers and editors must preserve the confidentiality of manuscripts, peer-review reports, data, images, and editorial materials. They must not upload manuscripts or confidential documents to AI tools or external platforms when the confidentiality, security, and non-reuse of the information cannot be guaranteed. Any exceptional use of AI-assisted technologies in editorial activities must be authorized by the journal, transparently disclosed, and limited to auxiliary functions that do not replace expert judgment.