Laboratory evaluation and quality of life
As a surrogate marker of liver function, we analysed bilirubin serum levels at baseline as well as 6 weeks and 3 months after iBT as means with standard deviation by Student’s At all points in time, means were within normal ranges (< 21 µmol/l), comparison between groups and within each group did not show any statistical significance, see Table Similar analyses were carried out for other liver specific parameters (albumin, alanine-amino-transferase, aspartate-amino-transferase, glutamate-dehydrogenase and choline-esterase) and did not reveal any significant elevation compared to baseline as well.Quality of life (QoL) was assessed according to the EQ-5D questionnaire as percentages. Mean overall QoL was 69.2 ± 16.6% at baseline, 70.0 ± 18.1% after 6 weeks and 72.9 ± 13.7% after 3 months. Analysis by independent samples Mann–Whitney test to compare both groups demonstrated p-values between 0.52 and 0.72. Thus, no significant influence of the study group on QoL was seen.