Table 1.

Patients characteristics in case and control groups

		Case	Control	p-value
Age (year)		67 ± 10	70 ± 8	0.34
Sex (male/female)		11/4	10/5	0.99
Severity (GOLD criteria)
	I	0	0	0.187
	II	0	4(27%)
	III	5(33%)	4(27%)
	IV	10(67%)	7(47%)
Weight (Kg)		70±15	62±11	0.12
Height (cm)		166±6	164±4	0.46
Tobacco (pack year)		23 ± 18	22 ± 18	0.90
Tobacco>20 pack year		6(40%)	7 (47%)	0.75
History of admission		9(60%)	10(67%)	0.73
Baseline PEFR L/min		126 ± 76	142 ± 62	0.64
Baseline FEV1 (% of predicted)		26 ± 12	35 ± 18	0.13
Baseline SPO2%		89 ± 2	89 ± 1	0.82
Creatinine		1.17 ± 0.30	1.15 ± 0.26	0.85
Mg		2.11 ± 0.28	2.05 ± 0.40	0.68