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Article History

Received: 11 November 2025

Revised: 30 April 2026

Accepted: 6 May 2026

First Online: 26 May 2026

Declarations

Ethics Approval: Patients and control subjects in FinnGen provided informed consent for biobank research, based on the Finnish Biobank Act. Alternatively, separate research cohorts, collected prior to the Finnish Biobank Act came into effect (in September 2013) and the start of FinnGen (August 2017), were collected based on study-specific consents and later transferred to the Finnish biobanks after approval by Fimea (Finnish Medicines Agency), the National Supervisory Authority for Welfare and Health. Recruitment protocols followed the biobank protocols approved by Fimea. The Coordinating Ethics Committee of the Hospital District of Helsinki and Uusimaa (HUS) statement number for the FinnGen study is Nr HUS/990/2017. The FinnGen study is approved by Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (permit numbers: THL/2031/6.02.00/2017, THL/1101/5.05.00/2017, THL/341/6.02.00/2018, THL/2222/6.02.00/2018, THL/283/6.02.00/2019, THL/1721/5.05.00/2019 and THL/1524/5.05.00/2020), Digital and population data service agency (permit numbers: VRK43431/2017-3, VRK/6909/2018-3, VRK/4415/2019-3), the Social Insurance Institution (permit numbers: KELA 58/522/2017, KELA 131/522/2018, KELA 70/522/2019, KELA 98/522/2019, KELA 134/522/2019, KELA 138/522/2019, KELA 2/522/2020, KELA 16/522/2020), Findata permit numbers THL/2364/14.02/2020, THL/4055/14.06.00/2020, THL/3433/14.06.00/2020, THL/4432/14.06/2020, THL/5189/14.06/2020, THL/5894/14.06.00/2020, THL/6619/14.06.00/2020, THL/209/14.06.00/2021, THL/688/14.06.00/2021, THL/1284/14.06.00/2021, THL/1965/14.06.00/2021, THL/5546/14.02.00/2020, THL/2658/14.06.00/2021, THL/4235/14.06.00/2021, Statistics Finland (permit numbers: TK-53–1041-17 and TK/143/07.03.00/2020 (earlier TK-53–90-20) TK/1735/07.03.00/2021, TK/3112/07.03.00/2021) and Finnish Registry for Kidney Diseases permission/extract from the meeting minutes on 4th July 2019.The Biobank Access Decisions for FinnGen samples and data utilized in FinnGen Data Freeze 10 include: THL Biobank BB2017_55, BB2017_111, BB2018_19, BB_2018_34, BB_2018_67, BB2018_71, BB2019_7, BB2019_8, BB2019_26, BB2020_1, BB2021_65, Finnish Red Cross Blood Service Biobank 7.12.2017, Helsinki, Biobank HUS/359/2017, HUS/248/2020, HUS/150/2022 § 12, §13, §14, §15, §16, §17, 124 §18, and §23, Auria Biobank AB17-5154 and amendment #1 (August 17 2020) and amendments BB_2021-0140, BB_2021-0156 (August 26 2021, Feb 2 2022), BB_2021-0169, BB_2021-0179, BB_2021-0161, AB20-5926 and amendment # (April 23 2020)and and its modification (Sep 22 2021), Biobank Borealis of Northern Finland_2017_1013, 2021_5010, 2021_5018, 2021_5015, 2021_5023, 2021_5017, 2022_6001, Biobank of Eastern Finland 1186/2018 and amendment 22 §/2020, 53§/2021, 13§/2022, 14§/2022, 15§/2022, Finnish Clinical Biobank Tampere MH0004 and amendments (21.02.2020 & 06.10.2020), §8/2021, §9/2022, §10/2022, §12/2022, §20/2022, §21/2022, §22/2022, §23/2022, Central Finland Biobank 1–2017, and Terveystalo Biobank STB 2018001 and amendment 25th Aug 2020, Finnish Hematological Registry and Clinical Biobank decision 18th June 2021, Arctic biobank P0844: ARC_2021_1001.Individual-level data analysis in Estonian Biobank (EstBB) was carried out with ethical approval number 1.1–12.1/624 from the Estonian Committee on Bioethics and Human Research (Estonian Ministry of Social Affairs).

Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Use of AI: No AI used.