Dear ORS Members,
As your Editor-in-Chief of our Journal of Orthopaedic Research, conflicts between ORS members over ethical use of animals for research have come to my attention and need to be addressed. In general, these conflicts are about cultural, regional, and national differences of opinion and laws pertaining to animal species, injury models, pain managements, and pain assessments, in Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) approved protocols. As we are an international community, these differences are to be expected. However, to adequately respect large differences, I believe the time has come to go beyond mere IACUC approval for peer reviewed publication in the JOR. Therefore, I have tasked the ORS Preclinical Models Section to produce new guidance regarding expectations of animal care, pain control, and experimental design for submissions to the JOR which involve preclinical animal models. Please review the first draft of this new guidance and post your thoughts and recommendations on this subject in the form field below. This information will be collated in January to derive a final draft of guidance that will be voted on for approval at the Preclinical Models Section meeting at the 2025 ORS Annual Meeting in February. As my intention is to incorporate the approved guidance into the JOR submission process for peer reviewed research articles, your participation in this process is critical.
I thank you in advance.
Sincerely,
Edward Schwarz, PhD
Fellow of the Orthopaedic Research Society
Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Orthopaedic Research
While this new guidance seems like reasonable information to include in addition to the ARRIVE checklist, the total amount of detail required for preclinical study manuscripts is becoming substantial in length. I suggest that this detail be allowed to be placed in an appendix or supplementary material, or as its own methodological subsection that is not considered in the manuscript’s total word count. This may encourage authors to describe their animal model details more fully, rather than having to be selective with words to fit within the overall manuscript limits.
While the requested information would be helpful to ensure animals involved in research are treated ethically, without experiencing any undue/uncontrolled pain, I believe the amount of information requested in the proposal is excessive and would take up a substantial proportion of the word limit for each manuscript. I suggest perhaps requesting a supplementary document to go with each submission in which the proposed queries are addressed instead of including them in the manuscript.
While parameters/observations/scoring for pain are now available and fairly widely used across preclinical research, the assessment of ‘discomfort’ is purely subjective. ‘Uncontrolled pain’ is also of questionable value, because in some cases, analgesia is only given in the perioperative period, and this question does not provide information as to whether rescue analgesia or humane endpoints were used in the longer term period. Perhaps stick with a link to USDA categories, make reporting of category required, and ask specifically (check box) if humane endpoints, rescue analgesia, or no additional analgesia for scientific reasons and approved by local IACUC was provided. Also, this burden of information needs to go into supplemental data. Unclear what additional info this provides in addition to a correctly filled out ARRIVE.
Requested information seems reasonable and not beyond a typical U.S. IACUC application. Agree with the comments about not counting against the submission length restriction.
I agree that this is an important issue. I think requiring authors to submit proof of IACUC approval and documentation that the ARRIVE guidelines were followed would be sufficient without adding another layer to the submission process.
I am curious how differences in opinion across different approved IACUC protocols will be reconciled here in terms of decision making. Is the idea that this is for reporting purposes or that the information will be used to determine whether a study has met some additional criteria to be considered ethical? And if there are standards that will supercede IACUC, then these need to be transparently posted and not left up to individual reviewers to decide. In my opinion, it is not the journal’s place to override approved IACUC procedures.
This is the bare minimum what should be reported in animal studies.
While i agree with all the above comments and also with the new questionaire – i would go one step further in including one question that partains to the training of animals towards the experimental procedure (to reduce stress) and another whether efforts for extra enrichment in housing was made – two questions that would be yes or no answers but would give a deep insight into the experimental set up and whether refinement is taken seriously.
I agree with above concerns about word limit. I agree with above comment about needing clarification for whether additional criterial are planned and these need to be transparent. I think some of the questions overlap with ARRIVE guidelines and some of the questions are too specific (trauma, infection, which limb/spine). I am concerned that yet another layer of documentation will simply reduce submissions and authors will go to another journal with fewer additional barriers. Has the publications committee also been part of this process?
Valid monitoring, assessments, and pain, wound/joint, and general health management need to be documented with results presented. These should address the 3 Rs, established IACUC, and ARRIVE and be applied to all species. When these are documented well, reviewers’ personal opinions and perspectives and biases should be irrelevant and should be address accordingly by the editor (or session moderator). I dont see need at all for additional requirements or documentation, I see the need for this to be done well by investigators/authors, reviewers, and editors/moderators. This is not currently the case at JOR/ORS.