Table 4.

Summary of the POP-HQ histopathological scoring for the control and POP-phenotypes USLs

	Control	POP-A(dipose)	POP-I(nflammatory)	POP-V(ascular)
N	15	8	9	11
Feature	Mean ± SD	Mean ± SD	Mean ± SD	Mean ± SD
Fibrillar collagen	53.8 ± 17.0	67.1 ± 14.0	54.9 ± 13.9	53.2 ± 26.0
Total non-vascular smooth muscle	2.4 ± 0.5a	1.5 ± 0.6a	2.0 ± 0.7	2.0 ± 0.7
SmFDO	0.8 ± 0.5a	1.4 ± 0.3a	1.3 ± 0.5	0.9 ± 0.5
Muscle fiber vesicles	0.0 ± 0.1	0.0 ± 0.0	0.0 ± 0.0	0.2 ± 0.5
Adipose	0.4 ± 0.7	0.8 ± 0.5	0.7 ± 0.6	0.3 ± 0.3
PMN-Inflam	0.4 ± 0.2b	0.9 ± 0.8ab	1.9 ± 0.7b*	0.1 ± 0.1ab
PN-Inflam	0.1 ± 0.1a	0.3 ± 0.7	0.6 ± 0.8ab	0.0 ± 0.0b
NIH	0.4 ± 0.8a	0.0 ± 0.0a	0.0 ± 0.0a	2.3 ± 0.6a*
Vessel quantity	1.1 ± 0.8	0.9 ± 0.5	1.2 ± 0.8	1.7 ± 0.6

Average and standard deviations of the mean are included for the POP-HQ histopathological scoring features for each phenotype of subjects. The N of each group is indicated. Statistical comparisons of POP-HQ phenotypes’ histopathological scoring data were performed using R software with required packages indicated where appropriate [29]. Welch’s unequal variances t-test was used when the phenotypes had unequal variances and were of unequal sample size. Analysis of variance with Tukey’s post hoc pairwise test was used when making multiple comparisons between continuous variables and Pearson’s Chi-squared test with Yates’ continuity correction for categorical variables (R package “RVAideMemoire”). Mean values that significantly differ from one another are denoted by letters (a, b, c); p < 0.05 as determined by ANOVA followed by Tukey’s post hoc pairwise test. Asterisks indicate significance where p < 0.005 between indicated group and all other groups