About the Authors

Haris S. Vasiliadis

charilaosvasileiadis@sonnenhof.ch

Affiliation Orthopaedie Sonnenhof, Bern, Switzerland

Adriani Nikolakopoulou

Affiliation Department of Hygiene and Epidemiology, University of Ioannina School of Medicine, Ioannina, Greece

Ian Shrier

Affiliation Centre for Clinical Epidemiology, Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research, Jewish General Hospital, McGill University, Montreal, Canada

Michael P. Lunn

Affiliation Centre for Neuromuscular Disease, National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, Queen Square, London WC1N 3BG, United Kingdom

Ruth Brassington

Affiliation Centre for Neuromuscular Disease, National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, Queen Square, London WC1N 3BG, United Kingdom

Rob J. P. Scholten

Affiliation Dutch Cochrane Centre and Julius Center for Health Sciences and Primary Care, University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands

Georgia Salanti

Affiliation Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine (ISPM) & Berner Institut für Hausarztmedizin (BIHAM) University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland

Competing Interests

HV received travel support from the manufacturer of instrumentation (Stryker) for mini-open and endoscopic release to attend orthopedic conference. 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: HV IS ML RB RS GS. Performed the experiments: HV IS GS. Analyzed the data: HS AN GS. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: HV IS ML RB RS GS. Wrote the paper: HV IS ML RB RS GS.