Table 3. Conditions affecting the capacity for cardioprotection by preconditioning (IPreC) obtained by substracting the LDH values of the I/R alone group from the IPreC group for each individual patients and then compared with the mean value of the remainder study population.

Condition	N	Average LDH (AU/g. wet wt)	P–value*
Female	94	-0.50	0.035
Male	206	-0.30
With mitral valve disease	46	-0.12	0.038
Without mitral valve disease	254	-0.44

*p values were calculated using the Mann Whitney test.