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Article History

Received: 9 November 2017

Accepted: 9 August 2018

First Online: 16 August 2018

Ethics approval and consent to participate

: Samples were retrieved from the archives of the collaborating institutions and de-identified. For the following institutions, the study was interpreted as a service improvement not requiring specific research ethics committee approval as stated in the EU Clinical Trials Directive (2001/20/EC): Radboud university medical center, VIOLLIER (assay performed by Viollier, samples mainly from University Hospital Basel and Luzerner Kantonsspital, Switzerland), Applied Research on Cancer Centre (ARC-NET), University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire (UHCW), Institut National de la Sante et de la Recherche Medicale (INSERM), and Centro di Ricerche Oncologiche di Mercogliano (CROM). Samples from the following institutions were used under approved Institutional Review Board protocols: ARUP Laboratories (ARUP Laboratories Ethics Committee approval 24,487), Queen’s University (Health Sciences and Affiliated Teaching Hospitals Research Ethics Board approval 6,010,968), and Kinki University (Institutional Review Board of Kindai University Faculty of Medicine approval 22–106). Samples from Ipatimup were used in accordance with Article 19 (“DNA Banks and Other Biological Products”) of Portuguese Law No. 12/2005 of 26 January (“Personal genetic information and health information”).

: Thermo Fisher Scientific provided reagents for this study to participating laboratories at a discount. Travel funds were partially reimbursed for consortium members to attend a group meeting. Authors R.P., V.B., and K.B. are employed by Thermo Fisher Scientific. NN is a member of the editorial board (Associate Editor) of this journal.

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