Footnotes

• Contributors J-WH, HJK and S-HK took part in study concept and design. J-WH, HJK and S-HK were involved in drafting of the manuscript. J-WH, HJK, S-HK, IHJ and SHL participated in acquisition, analysis and interpretation of data. J-WH, HJK and S-HK were involved in statistical analysis. J-WH, HJK and S-HK took part in critical revision of the manuscript for important intellectual content.

• Competing interests HJK has given talks, consulted and received honoraria from Bayer Schering Pharma, Biogen Idec, Genzyme, Merck Serono, Novartis, Teva-Handok and UCB and received research grants from Genzyme, Kael-GemVax and Merck Serono. He serves on a steering committee for MedImmune and is an editoral board member for Multiple Sclerosis Journal—Experimental, Translational and Clinical.

• Ethics approval Institutional Review Board of National Cancer Centre.

• Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.