Statistical analyses
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Data are presented as mean values ± standard deviations (SD) and 95% confidence intervals (95%-CI). The “SPSS” program (v. 28.0, IBM Corporation, Armonk, New York, USA) was used for the statistical analyses. Parametric tests were used throughout. When assumptions were violated and when appropriate, non-parametric (rank-based) hypotheses tests were conducted. For baseline comparisons of interval-scaled variables between the two groups, the Student’s t test or the Mann-Whitney U test for unpaired samples were performed. The Chi