About the Authors

Paolo Verdecchia

Contributed equally to this work with: Paolo Verdecchia, Gianpaolo Reboldi

verdec@tin.it

Affiliation Department of Medicine, Hospital of Assisi, Assisi, Italy

Fabio Angeli

Affiliation Cardiology and Cardiovascular Pathophysiology, University Hospital of Perugia, Perugia, Italy

Gregory Y. H. Lip

Affiliation University of Birmingham Centre for Cardiovascular Sciences, City Hospital, Birmingham, United Kingdom

Gianpaolo Reboldi

Contributed equally to this work with: Paolo Verdecchia, Gianpaolo Reboldi

Affiliation Department of Medicine, University of Perugia, Perugia, Italy

Competing Interests

This work has not been supported from any Pharmaceutical Company. PV has no conflict of interest to declare; FA has no conflict of interest to declare; GHL has served as a consultant for Bayer, Astellas, Merck, AstraZeneca, Sanofi, BMS/Pfizer, Biotronik, Portola and Boehringer Ingelheim and has been on the speakers bureau for Bayer, BMS/Pfizer, Boehringer Ingelheim, and Sanofi-Aventis; GR has no conflict of interest to declare. This does not alter the authors' adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: PV FA GYHL GR. Analyzed the data: PV FA GYHL GR. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: PV FA GYHL GR. Wrote the paper: PV FA GYHL GR.