Statistical analysis
Based on the results from a pilot study, the PASS software was used for sample size calculation. With α = 0.05 and β = 0.2, it was determined that 54 cases in each group were needed. Considering a 20% potential loss to follow-up, a total of 195 patients were required for this study.The normal distribution was assessed using a quantile-quantile plot (Q-Q plot) and the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test. Continuous variables were presented as mean ± standard deviation (SD) for normally distributed data or median and interquartile range (IQR) for non-normally distributed data. Numerical differences among the three groups were analyzed using ANOVA for normally distributed variables with homogeneity of variance. Analysis of variance was used for inter-group comparisons at the same time point, and Bonferroni correction was applied for intra-group comparisons at different time points. The chi-square test was used for analyzing categorical data. A p-value less than 0.05 was statistically significant. All statistical analyses were performed using SPSS, Version 25.0 (SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL, USA).