About the Authors

Antonella Cotoia

Contributed equally to this work with: Antonella Cotoia, Rosella Scrima

Affiliation Department of Medical and Surgical Sciences, University of Foggia, Foggia, Italy

Rosella Scrima

Contributed equally to this work with: Antonella Cotoia, Rosella Scrima

Affiliation Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine, University of Foggia, Foggia, Italy

Julia V. Gefter

Affiliation Department of Critical Care Medicine, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States of America

Claudia Piccoli

Affiliation Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine, University of Foggia, Foggia, Italy

Gilda Cinnella

Affiliation Department of Medical and Surgical Sciences, University of Foggia, Foggia, Italy

Michele Dambrosio

Affiliation Department of Medical and Surgical Sciences, University of Foggia, Foggia, Italy

Mitchell P. Fink

Affiliation Department of Surgery and Anesthesiology, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Los Angeles, California, United States of America

Nazzareno Capitanio

nazzareno.capitanio@unifg.it

Affiliation Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine, University of Foggia, Foggia, Italy

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: NC AC. Performed the experiments: AC RS CP. Analyzed the data: NC AC RS CP JVG. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: NC GC MD JVG MPF. Wrote the paper: NC AC MPF.