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.