García Rodríguez, Luis A. http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0837-2709
Cea Soriano, Lucía
de Abajo, Francisco J.
Valent, Francesca
Hallas, Jesper
Gil, Miguel
Cattaruzzi, Chiara
Rodriguez-Martin, Sara
Vora, Pareen
Soriano-Gabarró, Montse
Gaist, David
Article History
Received: 2 July 2021
Accepted: 7 November 2021
First Online: 17 November 2021
Declarations
:
: The UK study was approved by the Independent Scientific Research Committee for IMRD (reference number 19THIN077). Data collection for IMRD was approved by the South East Multicentre Research Ethics Committee in 2003 and individual studies using IMRD data do not require separate ethical approval if only anonymized data are used. The project was approved by the Region of Southern Denmark and is registered on the record of data processing activities in the region (j.nr.18/51966). Danish law does not require approval from an ethics board or informed consent for register studies. The Spanish part of the study was approved by the BIFAP Scientific Committee (reference number: 11/2019). Spanish law does not require ethical approval for epidemiological studies using fully anonymized data. For the Italian part of the study, approval from an ethics committee was not required because the databases used in the analyses – from the Regional Epidemiological Repository – are completely anonymous. As it was not possible to know the subjects’ identities, informed consent was also not required.
: Not applicable.
: Not applicable.
: LAGR works for CEIFE, which has received research funding Bayer AG. LAGR has also received honoraria for serving on advisory boards for Bayer AG. DG has received honoraria from AstraZeneca (Sweden) for participation as a coinvestigator on a research project outside the submitted work; and receiving speaker honorarium from Bristol-Myers Squibb outside the submitted work. FdA has received unrestricted research grants from Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Instituto Teófilo Hernando, Chiesi and Sanofi-Pasteur, for other research projects. JH has participated in research projects funded by Alcon, Almirall, Astellas, Astra-Zeneca, Boehringer-Ingelheim, Novo Nordisk, Servier and LEO Pharma, all with funds paid to the institution where he was employed (no personal fees) and with no relation to the current study. LCS, SR-M, MG, CC and FV declare no conflicts of interest. PV and MS-G are employees of Bayer AG.