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Article History

Received: 22 February 2026

Accepted: 4 August 2026

First Online: 7 August 2026

Declarations

Ethics approval and consent to participate: The study protocol was approved by the Ethics Committee of the Medical University of Vienna (EK 1629/2022). Additional approval was obtained from the Ethics Committee of the Medical University of Innsbruck (1131/2022), the Ethics Committee of the Medical University of Graz (35–065 ex 22/23), the Ethics Committee of the City of Vienna (EK 22-244-VK), the Ethics Committee of the Medical Faculty of Johannes Kepler University Linz (1175/2022), the Ethics Committee of Carinthia (M2022-56), the Ethics Committee at LMU Munich (22–0842), the Ethics Committee of the Medical Faculty of Eberhard Karls University and University Hospital Tübingen (511/2022BO2), the Ethics Committee of the Hamburg Medical Association (2023-200712-BO-bet), the Ethics Committee at TU Dresden (BO-EK-458102022), the Cantonal Ethics Committee of Zurich (2022–02294), the Ethics Committee of the Baden-Württemberg State Medical Association (F-2023-017), and the Ethics Committee of the Technical University of Munich (2023-407-S-NP). Approval was also obtained from the Ethics Committee of the Hospital of the Brothers of St. John of God, Vienna, for which no reference number was assigned. For St. Elisabeth Hospital Damme, the Lower Saxony Ethics Committee ( Ethikkommission bei der Ärztekammer Niedersachsen ) confirmed that no additional local ethics approval was required and accepted the ethics approvals already obtained for the multicenter study. Written informed consent was obtained from all participants before study inclusion.

Consent for publication: Not applicable.

Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests.