Table 1.

Patients and tissues used

Region of colon	All tissues studied			Tissues used for functional studies	Tissues used for H&E staining
	n	Age (years)	Gender (male:female)	n (strips)	Age (years)	Evidence of inflammation (ages)	n
Ascending	113	69±1 (35–91)	0.7: 1	109 (1020)	67±3 (40–91)	4 (60, 73, 78, 78 years)	30
Descending/sigmoid	132	65±1 (35–91)	1.4: 1	130 (1276)	66±3 (35–91)	2 (60, 78 years)	28

n, number of patients (for functional studies, numbers of muscle strips used are given in parenthesis). The ages of the patients are given as mean±SEM with ranges in parenthesis. For functional studies, tissues were used after overnight storage in fresh Krebs solution at 4˚C (188 tissues), 44 on the day of surgery and 7 on the day of surgery and after storage.