Funding for this research was provided by:
Tianjin Science and Technology Committee (Grant No. 15ZXLCSY00020)
National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 81373851)
Article History
Received: 7 April 2018
Accepted: 22 August 2018
First Online: 25 August 2018
Compliance with ethical standards
:
: The authors declare that ethical approval was not required. The study was performed retrospectively only using electronic data from the PD center database of the First Teaching Hospital of Tianjin University of Traditional Chinese Medicine. The patients were registered with an encrypted number code and de-identified prior to the study. All samples from patients included in the study were rendered anonymous. Thus, individuals could not be matched with their samples and their epidemiological and clinical data. The study was conducted according to the principles expressed in the Declaration of Helsinki, the Oviedo Convention on Human Rights, Biomedicine and the Slovene Code of Medical Deontology. Since only aggregated data were received and no additional samples or data were collected, the study was deemed to be low risk and the need for additional ethical permission from the National Medical Ethics Committee was waived.
: The authors declare that they have no competing interests.