Ethics and patient consent
This journal publishes recordings of identifiable clinical procedures. Consent is therefore not a checkbox at the end of the form; it is a condition the platform enforces before anything can be accepted.
Patient consent for publication
Written consent for publication of the case and the accompanying video must be obtained from the patient, in a language the patient reads, on a form that says the video will be published openly on the internet under a licence that permits redistribution. The patient must be shown the edited recording before submission — not a description of it.
The signed form is retained by the submitting institution. It is not transferred to the publisher, and the publisher does not ask for it: collecting signed consent forms centrally would mean holding a register of named patients in a jurisdiction other than the one that treated them. The corresponding author attests that the form exists and is retained, and that attestation is recorded on the permanent file with their name against it.
Consent may be withdrawn. Where a patient withdraws consent after publication the article is retracted, the recording is removed, and the retraction is deposited with Crossref as a machine-readable update. The record that the article existed is not erased, because erasing it would break every citation to it; the content comes down.
De-identification
Recordings are reviewed for identifiers before acceptance. The review is signed by one named person and counter-signed by a second; the platform refuses a sign-off that has not been counter-signed by someone other than the person recording it. There is no validated automatic de-identifier for endoscopic video, so this step is human and is treated as such.
Ethics approval
Single case reports do not require ethics committee review in most jurisdictions, and the journal does not pretend otherwise. What is required is a statement of the institution's position: the approval reference where one was issued, or the explicit statement that the committee does not review single cases. Technique articles drawing on a series of patients require approval.
Authorship
Authorship follows the ICMJE criteria. Every author is recorded with an ORCID iD and a CRediT contributor role taxonomy (NISO Z39.104-2022) statement. Performing the procedure is not by itself authorship, and neither is departmental seniority; both are common in this field and both are declined.
Conflicts of interest
Device and pharmaceutical relationships are declared per author and published with the article. Endoscopic technique articles frequently involve a device the author has a relationship with; that is not disqualifying, but an undeclared one is. The journal itself carries no advertising, and device manufacturers have no role in the selection or review of content.
What the reviewer screen refuses automatically
- Same institution as an author
- Blocking. The invitation cannot be issued; the platform removes the role rather than warning about it.
- Co-authorship within 4 years
- Blocking. The invitation cannot be issued; the platform removes the role rather than warning about it.
- Shared funder
- Declared to the handling editor, who decides. Not automatically disqualifying.
- Reviewer suggested by the authors
- Declared to the handling editor, who decides. Not automatically disqualifying.
Editorial independence
The journal is owned by the Saudi Gastroenterology Association and published by Videndo Publishing. Neither the society's officers nor any sponsor of the society has any role in the assessment of a manuscript. Editorial decisions are made by the handling editor and the Editor-in-Chief under the conditions set out in the peer review policy, and every decision is recorded on a hash-chained audit trail that cannot be altered after the fact.
Misconduct
Allegations are handled following the COPE flowcharts. Where an allegation is credible the article is moved to a documented investigation state, and where the outcome warrants it the article is retracted or an expression of concern is issued — both as machine-readable Crossref updates rather than as a note in a later issue. See corrections and retractions.