Withdrawal requests for an article are reviewed by the editorial board of the journal. To request the withdrawal of an article, the authors must send a letter signed by all authors, stating their request and the reasons for withdrawal, to the journal editor. Withdrawal requests will be addressed promptly, and authors who submit a request in good faith may consider their manuscript withdrawn (if they have not received a response within a reasonable time frame), even without formal confirmation from the journal.  It is important to note that authors should not submit their work to another journal for evaluation until they have officially withdrawn their manuscript. This occurs after submitting their request and allowing a reasonable period for the journal to respond, in order to avoid any potential conflicts of interest or duplication of publication.

Honest errors; overlap with a concurrent submission discovered by the authors; protocol changes that significantly alter the objectives; justified sponsor/institutional requests; pending authorship disputes; and ethical approval issues identified after submission are acceptable reasons, while attempting to withdraw to avoid negative reviews or submitting the same article to another journal before a formal decision is made are unacceptable reasons.

The journal treats correspondence as confidential. If misconduct is suspected, information may be shared only as necessary with relevant editors, reviewers, or institutions, consistent with COPE guidance.