Athanassiou, Panagiotis
Psaltis, Dimitrios
Georgiadis, Athanasios
Katsifis, Gkikas
Theodoridou, Athina
Gazi, Souzana
Sidiropoulos, Prodromos
Tektonidou, Maria G.
Bounas, Andreas
Kandyli, Anna
Vounotrypidis, Periklis
Sakellariou, Grigorios T.
Vassilopoulos, Dimitrios
Huang, Zhiping
Petrikkou, Evangelia http://orcid.org/0009-0002-2657-8567
Boumpas, Dimitrios
Article History
Received: 10 April 2023
Accepted: 17 June 2023
First Online: 5 July 2023
Declarations
:
: <i>Dr Prodromos Sidiropoulos</i> has received support for the present manuscript from MSD, in addition to research grants from Pfizer, Genesis, UCB, GSK, MSD, Abbvie, Novartis, Roche, Eli Lilly and Amgen. He has also received consultation payments from Pfizer, Abbvie and Eli Lilly, and honoraria from Pfizer, UCB, Abbvie, Novartis and Eli Lilly. He has received support for attending a Data Safety Monitoring Board or Advisory Board from Pfizer, Abbvie, Novartis and Eli Lilly. <i>Dr Dimitrios Vassilopoulos</i> has received support for the present manuscript from MSD<i>. Dr Periklis Vounotrypidis</i> has received support for the present manuscript from MSD, in addition to research grants from Abbvie, Genesis pharma and Novartis. <i>Dr Andreas Bounas</i> has received support for the present manuscript from MSD, in addition to grants or contracts from Abbvie, Amgen, Genesis, MSD, Novartis and Pfizer. He has also received honoraria from Abbvie, Aeonorasis, Amgen, Bausch Health, Faran, Genesis, GSK, Janssen, MSD, Novartis, Pfizer and UCB, as well as for participation on a Data Safety Monitoring Board or Advisory Board from Abbvie, Aeonorasis, Amgen, Bausch Health, Faran, Genesis, GSK, Janssen, MSD, Novartis, Pfizer and UCB. <i>Dr Anna Kandyli</i> has received consultation payments from Abbvie, Mylan and Genesis, as well as honoraria from Abbvie and Novartis. She has received support for attending meetings and/or travel from UCB, and for participating on a Data Safety Monitoring Board or Advisory Board from Genesis and Amgen. <i>Dr Gkikas Katsifis</i> has received honoraria from Abbvie, Aenorasis, Amgen, Janssen, Jenessis, Lilly, MSD, Novartis, Sobi, Roche, Pfizer and UCB. Also, the author has received support for attending meetings from AbbVie, Sandoz, Roche, UCB, and Lilly, and for his participation on a Data Safety Monitoring Board or Advisory Board from ELPEN. <i>Dr Grigorios Sakellariou</i> has received support for the present manuscript from MSD, as well as research grants for education activities from Pfizer, Genesis, UCB, GSK, and MSD, and support for attending meetings and/or travel from Abbvie and MSD. <i>Dr Maria Tektonidou</i> has received support for the present manuscript from MSD, as well as research grants from Genesis, UCB, GSK, MSD, and Amgen, and consultation payments from Genesis, GSK, Novartis and EI Lilly. <i>Zhiping Huang</i> is an employee of Merck & Co., Inc., Rahway, NJ, USA, and <i>Evangelia Petrikkou</i> is an employee of Merck Sharp & Dohme LLC, a subsidiary of Merck & Co., Inc., Rahway, NJ, USA, who owns stock and/or hold stock options in Merck & Co., Inc., Rahway, NJ, USA. <i>Drs Panagiotis Athanassiou, Dimitrios Psaltis, Athanasios Georgiadis, Athina Theodoridou, Souzana Gazi, and Dimitrios Bounas have declared no conflicts of interest.</i>
: The study was conducted in accordance with the EU Directive 2001/20/EC section for non-interventional studies and the applicable laws and regulations of Greece. All included patients provided written informed consent before study entry. The present study was performed in accordance with the Helsinki declaration of 1964, and its later amendments. The study was approved by the competent Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) of all participating hospital sites. Participation of private practice investigators was approved by the IRB of a participating hospital located in the same geographic region as the Private Practice. Specifically, the IRBs that reviewed and approved the study, and corresponding ethical review reference numbers include IRB of “Laiko” General Hospital (reference number: 6046/24-Apr-2018), IRB of “KAT” Regional General Hospital (reference number: 188/14-Jun-2018), IRB of Private Practice under “Laiko” General Hospital (reference number: 59/15-Feb-2018), IRB of University General Hospital of Heraklion, Crete (reference number: 17991/22-Nov-2018), IRB of “Olympion”Rehabilitation Center of Patras (reference number: 14-Mar-2018), IRB of Private Practice under University General Hospital of Ioannina (reference number: 5th/08-Apr-2018), IRB of Private Practice under European Interbalkan Medical Center (reference number 17-Jan-2018), IRB of Private Practice under European Interbalkan Medical Center (reference number 22-Jan-2019), IRB of “Attikon” University General Hospital (reference number 5th/29-May-2018), IRB of “Ag. Pavlos” of Thessaloniki (reference number: 123/08-Mar-2018), IRB of “Ippokrateio”General Hospital of Athens (reference number: 4552/19-Mar-2018), IRB of Naval Hospital of Athens (reference number: 3/18/02-Apr-2018).
: All persons gave their informed consent prior to their inclusion in the study.
: All participants provided consent for publication of the material collected in the context of this study in a non-identifiable manner.