Continuous versus interrupted abdominal wall closure after emergency midline laparotomy: CONTINT: a randomized controlled trial [NCT00544583].

"Declarations Ethics approval and consent to participateThe CONTINT was approved from the Independent Ethics Committee of the Medical Faculty of the University of Heidelberg (S-206/2007). Consent for publicationNot applicable. Competing interestsThe authors declare that they have no competing interests. Competing interests The authors declare that they have no competing interests."

"Funding The Study Center of the German Surgical Society was supported by a grant from the German Ministry of Research and Education (Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF; 01GH0702) and the German Surgical Society (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Chirurgie (DGCH)). CHIR-Net Munich (Surgical Regional Center Munich of the Trial Network of the German Surgical Society, DGCH) at the Klinikum rechts der Isar, Technische Universtität München, Munich Germany is funded by the BMBF (01GH1001C). Additional industrial funding for the infrastructure has been provided by Covidien Healthcare Deutschland GmbH, Neustadt, Germany. During the mono-center phase of the trial, CONTINT was supported by a grant from the Heidelberger Stiftung Chirurgie. There are no restrictions on publications and no conflict of interest. For the publication fee we acknowledge financial support by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft within the funding programme „Open Access Publikationskosten“ as well as by Heidelberg University."

"The study protocol was approved by the ethics committee of the University of Heidelberg (S-206/2007), the trial was internationally registered (NCT 00544583, October 16, 2007), and the study protocol was published to ensure transparency of the design and analysis procedures[]. CONTINT was initiated as a single center RCT in the Department of General, Visceral and Transplantation Surgery of the University of Heidelberg. The number of trial institutions was extended, and the trial protocol was amended to a total of 12 surgical sites on August 31, 2009. The multi-center, pragmatic, intra-operatively randomized, controlled, two-group trial, was managed and monitored by the Study Centre of the German Surgical Society (SDGC) and analyzed by the Institute of Medical Biometry (IMBI), University of Heidelberg. Reporting of the trial adheres to the recommendations of the updated and extended Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT) Statement."