Glutathione-S-transferases in lung and sputum specimens, effects of smoking and COPD severity

Respiratory Research

Table 2 Patient characteristics in the specimens examined by Western analysis.

	Non-smoker N = 7	Smoker N = 7	COPD N = 16	p-value
Age, years	63 (13)	59 (4)	62 (10)	0.754
Sex M:F	4:3	5:2	12:4	0.688
Pack-years	0	36 (16)*	34 (17)§	0.000
FEV1 %predicted	88 (18)	88 (13)	55 (31)*#	0.005
FEV1/FVC %	83 (9)	83 (10)	57 (20)*#	0.000
MEF50 %pred	88 (35)	84 (61)	37 (22)	0.066
DCO %pred	95 (20)	82 (10)	52 (22)§	0.003
DCO/VA %pred	100 (18)	89 (9)	62 (24) §	0.006

Mean (SD)
All cases were studied for the expression of GST pi, but due to the exhaustion of biopsy material, only 4 non-smokers, 3 smokers and 8 COPD-cases were included in the Western analysis for GST alpha expression and 4 smokers, 4 non-smokers and 10 COPD-patients for GST mu expression.
*The mean difference between non-smokers and smokers is significant at the 0.05 level, Dunnett t-test.
§ The mean difference between non-smokers and COPD-patients is significant at the 0.05 level, Dunnett t-test.
# The mean difference between smokers and COPD-patients is significant at the 0.05 level, Dunnett t-test.

ISSN: 1465-993X