Detection of antioxidant activity in aortic media. A, Total SOD activity was similar among aortic specimens from patients with aneurysmal and nonaneurysmal BAV and TAV. B, Peroxidase activity was found to be increased in aortic specimens from patients with BAV compared with TAV specimens. Box plots depict the median (middle line of the box), first (lower line of the box), and third (upper line of the box) quartiles with errors bars representing 90th and 10th percentiles. All data points are indicated by a closed circle. *Indicates P < .05 fromTAV-NA. In (B) P = .002 was obtained using a Mann-Whitney nonparametric U test comparing all TAV versus all BAV specimens. SOD, Superoxide dismutase; TAV-NA, tricuspid aortic valve-nonaneurysmal; TAV-TAA, tricuspid aortic valve-thoracic aortic aneurysm; BAV-NA, bicuspid aortic valve-nonaneurysmal; BAV-TAA, bicuspid aortic valve-thoracic aortic aneurysm; NS, not significant using a Kruskal-Wallis test.