Document is current

Article History

Received: 5 November 2020

Accepted: 9 November 2020

First Online: 16 February 2021

Ethics approval and consent to participate

: No specific approval was requested to the ethic committee as a leaflet including the following statement is given to all admitted patients: According to the law of the 19th December 2008, any left-over of biological material collected from patients for their standard medical management and normally destroyed when all diagnostic analyses have been performed, can be used for validation of methods. The law authorizes such use except if the patient expressed an opposition when still alive (presume consent). Written informed consent for participation was not required for this study in accordance with the national legislation and the institutional requirements. However, for HS, COPD and ILD patients, the protocol was approved by the ethics committee of CHU of Liège, and all subjects gave written consent before their enrollment (Belgian Number: B707201422832; ref: 2014/302).

: Not applicable.

: All authors declare to have no specific competing interests for this specific publication.