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Article History

Received: 12 March 2022

Accepted: 7 June 2022

First Online: 15 July 2022

Declarations

:

: The present prospective case–control study (ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT04854863; the present research letter reports first preliminary—hypothesis generating—data from this clinical trial) was conducted ethically in accordance with the World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki and was approved by the local ethics committee (Ethikkommission an der medizinischen Fakultät der Rheinisch-Westfälischen Technischen Hochschule Aachen, CTCA-A-Nr. 20-515, AZ EK 443/20) and written informed consent was obtained in every subject

: Obtained

: Not applicable.

: The authors state that they have no conflicts of interest to declare. There was no external study funder, and therefore no external parties had any role in the design of the study; in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript, or in the decision to publish the results. Internal funding was provided by the RWTH Aachen Faculty of Medicine (START Grant supporting the junior research group around Dr. Jens Spiesshoefer). This funding did not influence the design of the study; the data collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; the writing of the manuscript, or the decision to publish the results.