Document is current

Article History

Received: 1 December 2023

Accepted: 23 January 2024

First Online: 13 April 2024

Declarations

:

: Employment, stock ownership or options: Barbara Haber is a current employee of Merck Sharp & Dohme LLC, a subsidiary of Merck & Co., Inc., Rahway, NJ, USA, and may own stock/stock options in Merck & Co., Inc., Rahway, NJ, USA. Yoshihiko Murata was an employee of Merck Sharp & Dohme LLC, a subsidiary of Merck & Co., Inc., Rahway, NJ, USA, at the time of study and may own stock/stock options in Merck & Co., Inc., Rahway, NJ, USA. Nobuyuki Oshima and Toshiko Eto are current employees of MSD K.K., Tokyo, Japan, a subsidiary of Merck & Co., Inc., Rahway, NJ, USA, and may own stock/stock options in Merck & Co., Inc., Rahway, NJ, USA. Hideki Ishida, Norihiko Goto, Ryoichi Imamura, Hajime Sasaki, Kohei Unagami, and Kenta Futamura have declared no competing interests.

: The study was conducted in accordance with the principles of Good Clinical Practice (International Conference on Harmonization Guideline). The study protocol and amendments were approved by the appropriate institutional review boards and informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.