Article History
Received: 19 March 2021
Accepted: 17 October 2021
First Online: 27 October 2021
Declarations
:
: Drs. Ryota Matsui, Noriyuki Inaki, and Toshikatsu Tsuji have no conflicts of interest or financial ties to disclose.
: All experimental protocols described in this study were approved by the Institutional Ethical Review Committee of the Ishikawa Prefectural Central Hospital (authorization number: 1585). All procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical guidelines of Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare for medical and health research involving human subjects and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1964 and later versions.
: The opt-out recruitment method was applied to provide all patients an opportunity to decline to participate.