Consideration of Ethics
Five of the authors state that they received approval from their local ethics board for usage of patient data in their studies(3), (5), (22), (26), (27) all of whom analysed the data retrospectively. The remaining seven authors do not mention having sought ethical approval. However, ethical approval is required for all studies involving identifiable patient data, so although not stated, it is assumed that this was received in all 12 studies in line with GDPR and Good Clinical Practice or they would have been unable to proceed to data collection and subsequent publication.