Funding

This work was supported by a supplementary research fund from the University of Cagliari.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Ethics approval and consent to participate

The study protocol was approved by the local Ethics Committee of the University Hospital of Cagliari, Italy (reference number 16/09/CE). All patients gave written informed consent before inclusion in the study. The study was performed in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki.

Availability of data and material

The anonymized datasets used and/or analyzed in this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Authors' contributions

AB devised the study, participated in its design and coordination, and drafted the manuscript. RA and CC participated in the study design, literature search, and data collection and interpretation. FS and LA participated in data collection and interpretation. DaP, and DoP participated in the study design, performed the statistical analysis, and participated in data interpretation. DoP, GC, and AP performed the assessment of renal function and participated in data interpretation and in drafting of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.