Table 1.

Baseline clinical characteristics of enrolled subjects

Group	Normal control	Chronic hepatitis C
Case	21	72
Sex (male/female)	13/8*	50/22*
Age (years)	30 (22-38)#	36 (18-52)#
ALT (U/L)	24 (9-38)#	38 (25-97)#
HCV RNA (log10 copies/mL)	N.D.	4.61 (2.20-7.34)
HCV genotype (1b/2a)	N.D.	43/29

Data are shown as median and range. ND: notdetermined.

^*P>0.05 Chi-squared test;

^#P>0.05 Mann-Whitney test.