highly significantp<0.01
When PS+ patients were further stratified into subgroups with moderate (+) and severe (++) pathology, there was a highly significant difference in NF-IR between PS+ patients with severe pathology (++) and the control group (p<0.01), and furthermore significant differences were apparent between the severe pathology group and those with absent (0) and moderate (+) pathology (p<0.05) ( figure 2D ).