Table 4. Clinical characteristics of inflammatory cytokines and immune cells, in which the 64 HD patients were subdivided into different AVF Qa groups before the five-years follow-up.

Variable	Low AVF Qa	Median AVF Qa	High AVF Qa	P1 value (L vs. M)	P2 value (L vs. H)	P3 value (M vs. H)
Number	21	22	21
Age (year)	50.0(40.0~58.0)	56.0(50.0~70.0)	61.0(38.0~71.0)	0.12	0.25	0.65
Sex ratio (M/F)	10/11	12/10	12/9	0.95 r e 74s	0.14	0.36
AVF Qa (ml/min)	703.6±63.0	925.8±55.0	1207.9±125.0	0.0001	0.0001	0.001
KT/V	1.56±0.18	1.67±0.13	1.73±0.29	0.055	0.047	0.36
IL-2 (pg/ml)	2.57(1.78~3.55)	2.22(2.03~2.74)	3.89(2.61~5.99)	0.78	0.02	0.02
IL-6 (pg/ml)	2.19(1.79~2.60)	3.37(2.31~5.00)	4.90(3.07~7.22)	0.01	0.002	0.14
IL-10 (pg/ml)	1.55(1.02~2.47)	1.52(1.18~2.53)	1.88(1.29~3.01)	0.98	0.53	0.37
TNF-α (pg/ml)	1.45(1.19~1.56)	1.46(1.01~2.21)	1.95(1.36~2.57)	0.64	0.04	0.18
T cells	75.00(65.50~81.50)	74.50(67.00~78.25)	79.00(71.00~83.00)	0.74	0.40	0.23
Th cells	42.00(34.00~54.00)	48.00(39.5~52.00)	48.00(40.00~51.50)	0.79	0.62	0.88
Ts cells	22.00(20.00~28.50)	24.50(23.00~26.75)	27.00(24.00~35.00)	0.25	0.10	0.45
Th/Ts	1.77(1.35~2.69)	1.83(1.64~2.17)	1.52(1.29~2.08)	0.95	0.49	0.46
B cells	7.00(4.50~11.50)	10.50(7.25~14.50)	13.00(9.50~13.00)	0.50	0.08	0.45
NK cells	11.00(6.00~25.00)	11.50(5.75~22.50)	6.00(4.00~13.50)	0.84	0.18	0.45

Data are expressed as medians and quartiles for continuous variables that were not normally distributed or as the means and standard deviations for variables that are normally distributed. Comparisons between groups were performed by chi-squared tests or nonparametric tests. P<0.05 was considered statistically significant. L means low AVF Qa, M means median AVF Qa, H means high AVF Qa.