Statistical analysis
Continuous variables distributed normally were expressed as the mean ±
standard deviation, and those with a skewed distribution were expressed
as the median (interquartile range [IQR]). Categorical variables
were expressed as frequency (percentage). For between-group comparisons,
unpaired t-test was used for normally distributed variables,
Mann-Whitney U test for non-normally distributed variables, and
χ2 test (or Fisher exact test) for categorical
variables. Kaplan-Meier methods were used to estimate survival or
recurrence-free survival rates. The difference between patients with
coronary artery diseases (CAD) and those without CAD was analyzed using
the log-rank test. For all tests, a 2-tailed P-value <0.05 was
considered statistically significant. All statistical analyses were
performed using JMP Pro Software 14.3.0 (SAS Institute, Inc., Cary,
North Carolina, USA) and GraphPad Prism 8.3.0 (GraphPad Software, La
Jolla, California, USA).