THE ANNALS OF THORACIC SURGERY
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This form MUST be completed, signed by ALL authors, and returned to the Editorial Office before your manuscript can be accepted for publication. This form with signatures may be returned by fax to 215-614-0416.

Individual Conflict of Interest Disclosure Statement: Each author must indicate that for the past 12 months either (a) no financial conflict of interest exists with any commercial entity or competitor whose products are featured, described, reviewed, evaluated or compared in the manuscript, except for funding supporting the study as disclosed under “Acknowledgments” (see below) or (b) a potential conflict of interest exists with one or more commercial entities or a competitor whose products are featured, described, reviewed, evaluated or compared in the manuscript through the existence of one or more of the following relationships: (1) the author is a full- or part-time employee of a company; (2) the author and/or immediate family members (siblings, parents, children) has an existing or optional equity interest in a company and/or owns or partly owns patents licensed to a company; (3) the author has an ongoing retainer relationship (consultant, speaker, etc) with a company for which he/she receives financial remuneration; or (4) the author has received financial compensation for this publication. Financial compensation includes any amount of cash, securities, gifts, services, or items of value. If "Yes" is checked, a box on the title page of the published article will read: "Dr. X discloses that he/she has a financial relationship with company Y."

Acknowledgment of Sources of Funding for This Study: Grants, financial support and technical or other assistance are acknowledged at the end of the text before references. All sources of financial support for this project must be acknowledged.

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Freedom of Investigation Statement: "Freedom of investigation" is defined as freedom from outside interests in controlling the design of the study, acquisition of data, collection, analysis, and interpretation of data, and having freedom to fully disclose all results. Each author must indicate whether or not he or she has had full “freedom of investigation” before, during, and after this study. Except for New Technology articles, this statement is signed on the “Conditions for Publication Form” (below) and does not appear in the published manuscript.

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Copyright Transfer Agreement: Each author must sign this form to certify that, if the manuscript is accepted for publication in The Annals, copyright (including the right to obtain copyright registration, whether separately or as part of a journal issue or otherwise) in and to the above article, including original artwork, transfers throughout the world and for the full term and all extensions and renewals thereof to:

THE SOCIETY OF THORACIC SURGEONS (STS)

This transfer includes the right to adapt the article for use in conjunction with computer systems and programs, including reproductions or publication in machine-readable form and incorporation in retrieval systems.

Rights of authors: The STS hereby licenses the following rights back to the author(s):

1. Patent and trademark rights to any process or procedure described in the article.
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