About the Authors

Christof Kolb

kolb@dhm.mhn.de

Affiliation Deutsches Herzzentrum und 1. Medizinische Klinik rechts der Isar, Faculty of Medicine, Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany

Georg Nölker

Affiliations Klinikum Coburg, II. Medizinische Klinik, Coburg, Germany, Herzzentrum Nordrhein-Westfalen, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Bad Oeynhausen, Germany

Carsten Lennerz

Affiliation Deutsches Herzzentrum und 1. Medizinische Klinik rechts der Isar, Faculty of Medicine, Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany

Hansmartin Jetter

Affiliation Klinikum Memmingen, Medizinische Klinik I, Memmingen, Germany

Verena Semmler

Affiliation Deutsches Herzzentrum und 1. Medizinische Klinik rechts der Isar, Faculty of Medicine, Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany

Klaus Pürner

Affiliation Kreisklinik Ebersberg, Abteilung Innere Medizin, Ebersberg, Germany

Klaus-Jürgen Gutleben

Affiliations Klinikum Coburg, II. Medizinische Klinik, Coburg, Germany, Herzzentrum Nordrhein-Westfalen, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Bad Oeynhausen, Germany

Tilko Reents

Affiliation Deutsches Herzzentrum und 1. Medizinische Klinik rechts der Isar, Faculty of Medicine, Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany

Klaus Lang

Affiliation Kreiskrankenhaus Ottweiler, Abteilung für Innere Medizin, Ottweiler, Germany

Ulrich Lotze

Affiliation DRK-Krankenhaus Sondershausen, Abteilung Innere Medizin, Sondershausen, Germany

for the AVOID-FFS Investigators

Membership of the AVOID-FFS Study is provided in the Acknowledgments.

Competing Interests

This study was financially supported by St. Jude Medical, Eschborn, Germany. CK has received lecture fees from Biotronik, Boston, Medtronic, Sorin, and St. Jude Medical, and is or was an advisor to Biotronik, Sorin and St. Jude Medical. GN and KG received lecture fees from Biotronik, Medtronic, Sorin and St. Jude Medical. GN received support for travelling when presenting study data from St. Jude Medical. UL has received lecture fees from Medtronic and St. Jude Medical. All other authors have declared that no competing interests exist. This does not alter the authors’ adherence to all the PLoS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: CK. Performed the experiments: CK GN HJ KP KG KL UL. Analyzed the data: CK GN CL HJ VS KP TR KL UL. Wrote the paper: CK CL UL.