Document is current

Article History

Received: 24 October 2024

Accepted: 27 December 2025

First Online: 21 January 2026

Declarations

:

: The authors have no relevant financial or non-financial interests to disclose.

: Ethical Committee approval for this study was not necessary, based on the following facts: 1. This study was performed within the legal framework of the Belgian Cancer Registry (BCR). Based on the Coordinated Law of 10 May 2015 (art. 138); BCR has a legal task to collect data on cancer, subject it to quality control, process and analyse it, encrypt and store it, report on it, make it accessible for research, and protect it. Its activities are monitored and evaluated by the Advisory Committee of Users, an independent committee whose duly qualified members are appointed by law. 2. This retrospective study does not fall under the Belgian Law of 7 May 2004 regarding experiments on human persons (art. 3, §2). The research on human data for this study was performed in compliance with the general principles of the Helsinki Declaration and applicable national guidelines.

: Informed Consents were not obtained for this study, based on the following argument: The data controller shall be exempt from the obligation to disclose information to the persons whose data are processed (and to collect their consent) where a notification to the data subject is impossible or takes disproportionate effort, and in particular when data are processed for statistical purposes or for historical or scientific research (see. Art. 14.5, b. GDPR EU 2016/67).