About the Authors

Patrick Hahn

Patrick-hahn@gmx.de

Affiliation Center for Spine Surgery and Pain Therapy, Center for Orthopaedics and Traumatology of the St. Elisabeth Group – Catholic Hospitals Rhein-Ruhr, St. Anna Hospital Herne/Marienhospital Herne University Hospital/Marien Hospital Witten, Herne, Germany

Semih Oezdemir

Affiliation Center for Spine Surgery and Pain Therapy, Center for Orthopaedics and Traumatology of the St. Elisabeth Group – Catholic Hospitals Rhein-Ruhr, St. Anna Hospital Herne/Marienhospital Herne University Hospital/Marien Hospital Witten, Herne, Germany

Martin Komp

Affiliation Center for Spine Surgery and Pain Therapy, Center for Orthopaedics and Traumatology of the St. Elisabeth Group – Catholic Hospitals Rhein-Ruhr, St. Anna Hospital Herne/Marienhospital Herne University Hospital/Marien Hospital Witten, Herne, Germany

Athanasios Giannakopoulos

Affiliation Center for Spine Surgery and Pain Therapy, Center for Orthopaedics and Traumatology of the St. Elisabeth Group – Catholic Hospitals Rhein-Ruhr, St. Anna Hospital Herne/Marienhospital Herne University Hospital/Marien Hospital Witten, Herne, Germany

Roderich Heikenfeld

Affiliation Center for Orthopaedics and Traumatology of the St. Elisabeth Group – Catholic Hospitals Rhein-Ruhr, St. Anna Hospital Herne/Marienhospital Herne University Hospital/Marien Hospital Witten, Herne, Germany

Richard Kasch

Affiliation Clinic for Orthopaedics and Orthopaedic Surgery, University Medicine of Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany

Harry Merk

Affiliation Clinic for Orthopaedics and Orthopaedic Surgery, University Medicine of Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany

Georgios Godolias

Affiliation Center for Orthopaedics and Traumatology of the St. Elisabeth Group – Catholic Hospitals Rhein-Ruhr, St. Anna Hospital Herne/Marienhospital Herne University Hospital/Marien Hospital Witten, Herne, Germany

Sebastian Ruetten

Affiliation Center for Spine Surgery and Pain Therapy, Center for Orthopaedics and Traumatology of the St. Elisabeth Group – Catholic Hospitals Rhein-Ruhr, St. Anna Hospital Herne/Marienhospital Herne University Hospital/Marien Hospital Witten, Herne, Germany

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: PH SO MK AG RH RK HM GG SR. Performed the experiments: PH SO MK AG RH RK HM GG SR. Analyzed the data: PH SO MK AG RH RK HM GG SR. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: PH SO MK AG RH RK HM GG SR. Wrote the paper: PH SO MK AG RH RK HM GG SR.