Statistical analysis
The statistical analyses were performed using JMP software
(versionPro14, SAS institute, Cary, North Carolina). Continuous data are
expressed as the mean±SD for parametric data or median (interquartile
range [IQR]) for non-parametric data. A comparison of the means
between the groups was performed using an independent samples T-test for
normally distributed data and Mann-Whitney U-test for non-uniformly
distributed data. A value of p<0.05 was considered
statistically significance.