Kimura, Yasumi
Yoshida, Daigo
Ohara, Tomoyuki
Hata, Jun
Honda, Takanori
Hirakawa, Yoichiro
Shibata, Mao
Oishi, Emi
Sakata, Satoko
Furuta, Yoshihiko
Chen, Sanmei
Uchida, Kazuhiro
Nakao, Tomohiro
Kitazono, Takanari
Ninomiya, Toshiharu
Article History
Received: 8 September 2021
Accepted: 10 March 2022
First Online: 28 March 2022
Declarations
:
: In Japan, the ethical guideline for observational studies was first established in 2002. Therefore, only oral informed consent was obtained at the time of the baseline examination in 1988. Since 2002, written informed consent has been obtained from study participants who are alive at this time and contactable whenever possible (e.g., at the annual health examination or on other occasions). This study and the process of the informed consent was conducted with the approval of the Kyushu University Institutional Review Board for Clinical Research (Approval No. 2021-339). If a participant wishes to opt out from the study, his/her data will be excluded from the analysis. All procedures were carried out in accordance with relevant ethical guidelines.
: Not applicable.
: No potential conflicts of interest relevant to this article were reported.