Delayed apoptosis by neutrophils from COPD patients is associated with altered bak, bcl-xl, and mcl-1 mRNA expression

Table 2 Subjects’ demographic and clinical characteristics

Variables	Healthy controls (n = 47)	COPD patients (n = 47)	P-value
Age (years) ^†	58.8 ± 4.6	61.3 ± 4.5	0.011^*
Sex^‡			1.000
Males	40 (85.1%)	40 (85.1%)
Females	7 (14.9%)	7 (14.9%)
Smokers^‡	24 (51.1%)	24 (51.1%)	1.000
Smoking history (pack/year) ^§	31.9 ± 7.4	31.7 ± 6.0	0.755
FEV₁/FVC %^{†, §}	86.6 ± 4.5	56.8 ± 5.3	<.001^*
FEV₁,% Reference^{†, §}	103.1 ± 9.5	59.4 ± 6.3	<.001^*
ISAB as needed^‡	0 (0)	30 (63.8)	-
ILAB regularly^‡	0 (0)	18 (38.3)	-

Abbreviations: COPD: chronic obstructive pulmonary disease; ISAB: inhaled short-acting bronchodilators; ILAB: inhaled long-acting bronchodilators.
^†,‡,§ Results are means ± SDs for ^†,§continuous variables and n (%) for ^‡categorical variables.
^†‡§ Groups were compared using ^†two-sample t-test or ^§Mann–Whitney U test if data were not normally distributed. ^‡Pearson Chi-square test was used for categorical variables.
^* P < 0.05, significantly different between groups.

ISSN: 1746-1596