Article History
Received: 19 September 2018
Accepted: 26 February 2019
First Online: 15 March 2019
Ethics approval and consent to participate
: Former German uranium miners were offered a medical surveillance programme (including laboratory parameters, x-ray examination of the lungs, lung function and examination) by the ZeBWis (Zentrale Betreuungsstelle Wismut), a special department of the German Occupational Accident Insurance Associations responsible for health care and support of former SAG/SDAG Wismut employees. The German federal ministry for the environment enabled the establishment of the so called Wismut cohort to preserve the health data. A multicenter project investigating biomarkers with regard to lung cancer has been implemented and published earlier. All participants gave their consent to this project. At that time no ethical approval was required since the individuals participated voluntarily in the study. All data were analyzed anonymously. In the present study only former data and already frozen sera were analysed with modern laboratory methods, which were not available at that time. For the purpose of assessment and quality assurance no further ethic votes were required.
: The manuscript does not contain individual person’s data in any form.
: The Authors declare that they have no competing interests.
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