Table 2.
Patient characteristics in the specimens examined by Western analysis.
| Non-smoker N = 7 |
Smoker N = 7 |
COPD N = 16 |
p-value | |
| Age, years | 63 (13) | 59 (4) | 62 (10) | 0.754 |
| Sex M:F | 4:3 | 5:2 | 12:4 | 0.688 |
| Pack-years | 0 | 36 (16)* | 34 (17)§ | 0.000 |
| FEV1 %predicted | 88 (18) | 88 (13) | 55 (31)*# | 0.005 |
| FEV1/FVC % | 83 (9) | 83 (10) | 57 (20)*# | 0.000 |
| MEF50 %pred | 88 (35) | 84 (61) | 37 (22) | 0.066 |
| DCO %pred | 95 (20) | 82 (10) | 52 (22)§ | 0.003 |
| DCO/VA %pred | 100 (18) | 89 (9) | 62 (24) § | 0.006 |
Mean (SD)
All cases were studied for the expression of GST pi, but due to the exhaustion of biopsy material, only 4 non-smokers, 3 smokers and 8 COPD-cases were included in the Western analysis for GST alpha expression and 4 smokers, 4 non-smokers and 10 COPD-patients for GST mu expression.
*The mean difference between non-smokers and smokers is significant at the 0.05 level, Dunnett t-test.
§ The mean difference between non-smokers and COPD-patients is significant at the 0.05 level, Dunnett t-test.
# The mean difference between smokers and COPD-patients is significant at the 0.05 level, Dunnett t-test.