Athanassiou, Panagiotis
Kotrotsios, Anastasios
Kallitsakis, Ioannis
Bounas, Andreas
Dimitroulas, Theodoros
Garyfallos, Alexandros
Tektonidou, Maria G.
Vosvotekas, Giorgos
Livieratos, Achilleas
Petrikkou, Evangelia
Katsifis, Gkikas http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3214-7416
Funding for this research was provided by:
msd greece
Article History
Accepted: 18 November 2021
First Online: 28 November 2021
Declarations
:
: Dr Giorgios Vosvotekas has received honoraria from Abbvie, MSD, Novartis, Pfizer, Genesis, and Roche. Dr Gkikas Katsifis has received honoraria from Abbvie, Aenorasis, Amgen, Bausch Health, BMS, Celgene, Janssen, MSD, Novartis, Roche, Pfizer, and UCB. Dr Maria G. Tektonidou has received honoraria from Abbvie, Genesis, GSK, MSD, Novartis, Pfizer, and UCB. Dr Evangelia Petrikkou and Dr Achilleas Livieratos are employees of Merck Sharp & Dohme Corp, a subsidiary of Merck & Co., Inc., Kenilworth, NJ, USA, who may own stock and/or hold stock options in Merck & Co., Inc., Kenilworth, NJ, USA. For the remaining authors none were declared.
: The study was designed and conducted in accordance with the guidelines for Good Pharmacoepidemiology Practice of the International Society for Pharmacoepidemiology, the ethical principles laid down in the Declaration of Helsinki, and all applicable local rules and regulations. The study was approved by the competent Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) of all participating hospital sites. Participation of private practice investigators was approved by the Institutional Review Board of a participating hospital located in the same geographic region as the Private Practice. Specifically, the institutional ethics committees (Institutional Review Boards) that reviewed and approved the study, and corresponding ethical review reference numbers include IRB of 251 Air Force General Hospital (reference number: 862/03-Mar-2017), IRB of Iaso General Clinic (reference number: 79/05-Apr-2017), IRB of “Ag. Pavlos” General Hospital of Thessaloniki (reference number: 19/16-Feb-2017), IRB of “Olympion” Rehabilitation Center of Patras, IRB of University General Hospital of Ioannina (reference number: 13/19-Jun-2019), IRB of “Ippokrateio” General Hospital of Thessaloniki (reference number: 248/19-Jun-2017), IRB of “KAT” Hospital (reference number: 266/01-Aug-2017), IRB of “Ag. Andreas” General Hospital of Patras (reference number: 11/10-Mar-2017), IRB of “G. Gennimatas” General Hospital of Athens (reference number: 7856/07-Mar-2017), IRB of Private Practice under University General Hospital of Heraklion (reference number: 1261/08-Mar-2017), IRB of Naval Hospital of Athens (reference number: 2/1721-Feb-2017), IRB of University General Hospital of Larissa (reference number: 4829/17-Mar-2017), IRB of University General Hospital of Heraklion (reference number: 1261/08-Mar-2017), IRB of “Laiko” General Hospital (reference number: 386/06-Apr-2017), IRB of “Ippokrateio” General Hospital of Athens (reference number: 7396/18-May-2017), Private Practice under IRB of Iaso General Clinic (reference number: 278/08-Nov-2017), Private Practice under IRB of Euromedica Clinic Thessaloniki (reference number: 520/17-Mar-2017), Private Practice under IRB of “Ag. Pavlos” of Thessaloniki (reference number: 19/16-Feb-2017), and IRB of Private Practice under University General Hospital of Heraklion (reference number: 1261/08-Mar-2017).
: All persons gave their informed consent prior to their inclusion in the study.
: All participants provided consent for publication of the material collected in the context of this study in a non-identifiable manner.