All papers submitted to our Journal should declare agreement with the following ‘statement of informed consent’. No paper lacking it, will be considered for publication. Patients have a right to privacy that should not be infringed without informed consent. All information which could contribute to identify patients, including patients' names, initials, or hospital numbers, should not be published in written descriptions, photographs, etc., unless the information is essential for scientific purposes and the patient (or parent or guardian) gives explicit written informed consent for publication. For this purpose the manuscript should be shown to the patient before publication and specific and explicit informed consent should be obtained. Furthermore, individuals who provide writing assistance should be identified by the authors, and they must disclose the funding source for this assistance. Identifying details should be omitted if they are not essential. However, since complete anonymity is difficult to achieve, informed consent should be obtained from each patient involved, if there is any doubt. If identifying characteristics are altered to protect anonymity, such as in genetic pedigrees, authors should provide assurance that alterations do not distort scientific meaning, and editors will note that.