Statistical analyses
The data were processed by the software SPSS 22.0 and graphed by GraphPad Prism 9.5.1. Normally distributed continuous data were presented as mean ± standard deviation (SD) and analyzed using the Student’s t-test. Non-normally distributed continuous data were expressed as median (IQR) and analyzed using the Mann-Whitney U test. Categorical variables were expressed as frequencies (percentages) and analyzed using the Chi-square test (χ