Document is current

Article History

First Online: 6 August 2020

Declarations

:

: The study has not been supported by specific funding.

: SP, AS, and VP have no conflicts of interest to disclose. RC has received lecture fees and/or travel grants from Biogen, Celgene, Genzyme-Sanofi, Novartis, and TEVA. LI has received speaker honoraria from Biogen, Genzyme-Sanofi, Merck-Serono, and Novartis, has participated in a scientific advisory board for Biogen and received research funding from FISM (Fondazione Italiana Sclerosi Multipla) and research support from Genzyme-Sanofi.

: Samples were collected after approval by the Ethics Committee of Brescia (n. 113/2006; n. 24401; EMR200136-555; 12-13-2011; and NP2263) and was conducted according to the Declaration of Helsinki recommendations and its later amendments. Written informed consent was obtained from all patients.

: Not applicable.

: Not applicable.

: The datasets generated and analyzed during the current study are not publicly available due to ethical and law restrictions but are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

: Not applicable.

: LI conceived the study and wrote the first version of the manuscript. RC made substantial contributions to the acquisition of patients’ informed consents, samples, and clinical data. SP, AS, and VP performed laboratory tests. SP performed statistical analysis. All authors revised critically for important intellectual content. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.