Randomization
The patients were randomly assigned to one of three groups; control, demeclocycline 150 mg daily, demeclocycline 300 mg daily groups. The allocation ratio was set at 1:1:1. We used stratified randomization by institute with permuted blocks (block size = 3). In this study, an open-label design was applied. The reason for this design was that the primary endpoint was the enhancement of the T cell response, which is an objective measure devoid of evaluator bias. The statistician, who was responsible for this study, generated the allocation list confidentially and implementation was managed via the electronic data capture system (Datatrak Enterprise Cloud