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Article History

Received: 4 September 2025

Accepted: 31 March 2026

First Online: 17 April 2026

Declarations

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: Ex vivo chick chorioallantoic membrane (CAM) assays : The ex vivo CAM assays fully complies with European and Portuguese regulations. According to European Directive 2010/63/EU on the protection of animals used for scientific purposes, the chick embryo is not considered a protected animal until day 17 of development, since pain perception and nociception are not established before this stage (doi: ). Consequently, experiments conducted up to embryonic day 17 do not require ethics committee approval and there is no standardized maximum tumor size for these experiments. The project was approved by NOVA Medical School Ethical Committee (Ref: 75/2020/CEFCM). Human samples : The study was approved by the Ethics Committee of Instituto Português de Oncologia de Lisboa Francisco Gentil (IPO Lisboa) (reference UIC/1349). The research was conducted in accordance with the ethical standards of the approving committee and applicable institutional regulations ( ). Samples from healthy blood donors were analyzed anonymously. Informed consent to participate was obtained from all healthy blood donors included in the study, as approved by the Instituto Português de Oncologia de Lisboa , Francisco Gentil (IPOLFG)-Ethical committee (UIC-1349).

: Not applicable.

: The authors declare no competing interests.