highly significantp < 0.001
Furthermore, statistical analysis revealed a highly significant differential expression of miR-142 between the two study groups ( p < 0.001): subjects in the firefighter group (FF) exhibited a marked suppression of miR-142-3p levels compared to the control group (CTRL) showing a median of 0.170 (IQR: 0.024, 0.337), whereas the CTRL group maintained a median of 0.777 (IQR: 0.415, 0.987).