Adjunct prednisone in community-acquired pneumonia: 180-day outcome of a multicentre, double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial.

"Declarations Ethics approval and consent to participateThe conduct of the trial adhered to the declaration of Helsinki and Good Clinical Practice Guidelines, and the ethical committees of all participating hospitals (ethics committees: Ethikkommission beider Basel EKBB (Reference Number 370/08), Ethikkommission der Kantone Aargau und Solothurn (Reference Number 2011/031), commission d’ethique Lausanne (Reference Number 116/10) and Ethikkommission Bern (Reference Number 193/11)), as well as the Swiss Agency for Therapeutic Products (SWISSMEDIC (Reference Number 2009DR3227)) approved the study protocol before patient recruitment. All patients provided written informed consent [14].This trial was registered with ClinicalTrials. gov, number NCT00973154 before the recruitment of the first patient. First posted: September 9, 2009. Last update posted: April 21, 2015 [14]. Consent for publicationNot applicable. Competing interestsThe authors declare no competing interests. Competing interests The authors declare no competing interests."

"Funding Open access funding provided by University of Basel This study was supported by a grant by the Swiss National Foundation (PP0P3_123346) to MCC and the Nora van Meeuwen Häfliger Stiftung and the Gottfried and Julia Bangerter-Rhyner Stiftung. CB is supported by the Helmut Horten Foundation, the Swiss National Science Foundation (P155212) and a Young Independent Investigator Award of the Swiss Society of Endocrinology and Diabetology. PS is supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF Professorship, PP00P3_150531 / 1). BM is supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation (Grant 407440_167376). BM, CB, and PS were supported for this study by the research funds from the Department of Endocrinology, Diabetology and Metabolism, Medical University Clinic of the Kantonsspital Aarau and the “Argovia Professorship” of the Medical Faculty of the University of Basel. NR was supported for this study by a grant from Inselspital Bern, University Hospital and by a grant from the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF 320030–138267 and SNSF 320030–150025). MRB is supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF 32003B_205067) and the Swiss Heart Foundation (FF21106)."

"Trial registration This trial was registered with ClinicalTrials. gov, number NCT00973154 before the recruitment of the first patient. First posted: September 9, 2009. Last update posted: April 21, 2015."