Studies should be in compliance with human studies committees and animal welfare regulations of the authors' institutions and State Food and Drug Administration (SFDA) guidelines. Human studies must be performed with the subjects' written informed consent. Authors must provide the details of this procedure and indicate that the institutional committee on human research has approved the study protocol. If radiation is used in a research procedure, the radiation exposure must be specified in the Methods section.

Studies on patients or volunteers require ethics committee approval and informed consent, which should be documented in submitted paper. Patients have a right to privacy. Therefore, identifying information, including patients’ images, names, initials, or hospital numbers, should not be included in videos, recordings, written descriptions, photographs, and pedigrees unless the information is essential for scientific purposes and written informed consent for publication in print and electronic form from the patient (or parent, guardian, or next of kin where applicable) have been obtained. If such consent is made subject to any conditions, the editorial office must be made aware of all such conditions. Written consents must be provided to the editorial office on request. Even where consent has been given, identifying details should be omitted if they are not essential. 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 should so note. If such consent has not been obtained, personal details of patients included in any part of the paper and in any supplementary materials (including all illustrations and videos) must be removed before submission.

Animal investigation must conform to the "Position of the American Heart Association (AHA) on Research Animal Use". If equivalent guidelines are used, they should be indicated. The AHA position includes: (1) animal care and use by qualified individuals, supervised by veterinarians, and all facilities and transportation must comply with current legal requirements and guidelines; (2) research involving animals should be done only when alternative methods to yield needed information are not possible; (3) anesthesia must be used in all surgical interventions, all unnecessary suffering should be avoided and research must be terminated if unnecessary pain or fear results; and (4) animal facilities must meet the standards of the American Association for Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care (AAALAC).