Even among highly educated health professionals, there is inconsistency in the knowledge and perception concerning both conflict of interest (COI) itself and COI disclosure. The key issue is the credibility of the manuscript, which relies heavily on transparency of COI for the reader. The tendency to disregard the importance of COI disclosure among journal editors has been recently highlighted. For all types of COI, the primary question is how it is managed. To ensure the enforcement of the declared journal COI policies, it is crucial that not only authors, but also those who are involved in the assessment of manuscripts, be educated and informed of the updated guidelines concerning COI disclosure.
*Conflict of Interest ; Disclosure ; Editorial Policies ; Guidelines as Topic ; Humans ; Research

The process of writing, revising, and submitting manuscripts to journals until they are accepted and published is a task that can often be demanding, especially for non-native English-speaking researchers. In order to improve the quality of writing, it is important for researchers to have a good understanding of scientific/medical terminology and grammar, as well as the organization and structure of research articles. 1 Furthermore, it is helpful for non-native English speakers to become familiar with common problems or difficulties faced by researchers when writing in a non-native language. 2 Here, we focus on ways to refine a manuscript by introducing four items; choosing the active voice over passive voice, rewording and rephrasing sentences, creating an attractive Discussion, and revising titles. This paper is unique in that we present actual examples from our experience as editors in medical writing in Japan, thereby enabling readers to clearly understand each item and to put it into context.

AIMTo evaluate the occurrence and prevalence of microdeletions in the gamma chromosome of patients with azoospermia.

METHODSDNA from 29 men with idiopathic azoospermia was screened by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) analysis with a set of gamma chromosome specific sequence-tagged sites (STSs) to determine microdeletions in the gamma chromosome.

RESULTSDeletions in the DAZ (deleted in azoospermia) loci sgamma254 and sgamma255 were found in three patients with idiopathic azoospermia, resulting in an estimated frequency of deletions of 10.7% in idiopathic azoospermia men.

CONCLUSIONWe conclude that PCR analysis is useful for the diagnosis of microdeletions in the Y chromosome, which is important when deciding the suitability of a patient for assisted reproductive technology such as testicular sperm extracion-intracytoplasmic sperm injection (TESE-ICSI).

Adult ; Base Sequence ; Chromosomes, Human, Y ; DNA Primers ; Euchromatin ; genetics ; Follicle Stimulating Hormone ; blood ; Heterochromatin ; genetics ; Humans ; Luteinizing Hormone ; blood ; Male ; Oligospermia ; blood ; etiology ; genetics ; Polymerase Chain Reaction ; Prolactin ; blood ; Sequence Deletion ; genetics ; Sequence Tagged Sites ; Testosterone ; blood