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Article History

Received: 22 October 2025

Accepted: 9 March 2026

First Online: 12 May 2026

Declarations

:

: The study was approved by the ethics committees at each study site (leading ethics committee: “Ärztekammer Westfalen-Lippe und der Westfälischen Wilhelms Universität” responsible for the scientific expert (Prof. Griesshammer) was consulted before commencement of this study [positive vote on 13-May-2015]). The study was conducted in accordance with all local legal and regulatory requirements, as well as the general principles set forth in the International Ethical Guidelines for Biomedical Research Involving Human Patients, Guidelines for Good Clinical Practice, and the Declaration of Helsinki. All patients provided written informed consent prior to study inclusion.

: Not applicable for patients.

: Martin Griesshammer: Participated in advisory boards for and received grant support, consulting fees, honoraria, and meeting and travel support from Amgen, AOP Health, Eli Lilly, Novartis, BMS, AstraZeneca, and Janssen. Eyck von der Heyde: Received consulting fees and honoraria from Novartis, BMS, AstraZeneca, Ipsen, BeiGene, Iomedico, Boehringer Ingelheim and PierreFabre. Burkhard Schmidt: Participated in advisory boards and received honoraria and meeting and travel support from AbbVie, AOP, AstraZeneca, Beigene, BMS, Hexal, Incyte, Janssen, Menari Stemline, Novartis, Pfizer, Sanofi and SoBi Eva Gückel: Employee of Novartis Pharma, Germany. Volker Baum: Employee of Novartis Pharma, Germany The remaining authors declared no competing interests.