Acknowledgements
DEL, RECRUITMENT
The authors thank Serena Rotunno (Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore) for editorial assistance with the writing of this manuscript. We would like to acknowledge the contribution of the Multispecialistic Biobank Research Core Facility G-STeP, Fondazione Policlinico Universitario “A. Gemelli” IRCCS (Biobank-FPG) which provided the bioresources. We would like to acknowledge the Medicine and Surgery students Camilla Cocchi, Giuseppe Tremamunno and Carlo Piccinni for their contribution in patient recruitment and metabolic tests; we also wish to thank the technologist Fernando Matera (Medipass spa), for the valuable contribution during PET/CT acquisition.