Statistical Analysis
Data are presented as mean ± standard deviation for normally distributed variables and median (interquartile range) for non-normally distributed variables. The Independent-Samples t-test was used for normally distributed continuous variables and the Mann-Whitney U-test was used for non-normally distributed continuous variables. The Χ2 or the Fisher’s Exact test were used for categorical variables. All tests were two-sided, and the level of statistical significance was set at p < 0.05. All analyses were performed using IBM SPSS® version 27 (IBM Corporation, Armonk, NY).