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).