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Article History

Received: 26 October 2020

Accepted: 14 August 2021

First Online: 15 September 2021

Declarations

:

: S. Geiger-Gritsch, F. Kocher, P. Heininger, M. Fiegl and C. Wild declare that they have no competing interests. G. Absenger, F. Endel, M. Zechmeister, M. Flicker, A. Hermann, H. Olschewski, R. Wurm and G. Pall declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests: G. Absenger reports personal fees and non-financial support from BMS, Roche, MSD, Takeda, Astra Zeneca, Boehringer Ingelheim, and personal fees from Lilly, Pfizer outside the submitted work. F. Endel and M. Zechmeister receive payment for data management and statistical analysis from Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Health Technology Assessment (LBI-HTA, now AIHTA) during the conduct of the study. M. Flicker reports personal fees from Roche, BMS, Boehringer Ingelheim outside the submitted work. A. Hermann reports grants and personal fees from Boehringer Ingelheim, non-financial support from Roche Austria, grants and personal fees from Chiesi, personal fees from Novartis, outside the submitted work. H. Olschewski reports personal fees and non-financial support from Bayer, MSD, Pfizer, Novartis, grants, personal fees and non-financial support from Actelion, grants from Inventiva, personal fees from Boehringer, Chiesi, Menarini, MedUpdate, Astra Zeneca, and GSK, outside the submitted work; H. Olschewski is co-director of Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Lung Vascular Research, Graz, Austria. G. Pall reports personal fees and non-financial support from MSD, Roche, and BMS outside the submitted work. R. Wurm reports personal fees from MSD, BMS, Astra Zeneca, Roche, Boehringer Ingelheim, Pfizer, Takeda, Amgen, Lilly, and Bayer outside the submitted work.

: All procedures performed in studies involving human participants or on human tissue were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1975 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. The protocol was approved by the Ethics Committee of the Medical University Innsbruck (reference number 1048/2019) and the Ethics Committee of the Medical University Graz (reference number 31-490 ex 18/19). Because this study was intended to reflect usual clinical practice and real-world data and because a retrospective study design was used, no informed consent by the included patients was necessary and no compensation was provided to patients or participating physicians.