Study limitations
The present study has several significant limitations. First, the study
was observational. More extensive prospective randomized trials are
needed to explore these results and their clinical application. Second,
it was performed in a single centre. Third, the response rate for the
QoL survey was 87.6%, and data was not available for all patients
enrolled in the study. Finally, the present study results should be
interpreted as observational and hypothesis-generating only due to their
exploratory data analysis nature.