Descriptive statistics included means and standard deviations or medians and interquartile ranges for continuous variables of normal and non-normal distributions. Clinical and biochemical characteristics and cytokine levels were compared. The Fisher exact test and the chi-square test were used for categorical variables. The Mann-Whitney U test was used for nonparametric variables. The Wilcoxon test (nonparametric test) was used to compare two paired groups. The association between nonparametric variables was determined by the Spearman correlation coefficient (r). Any value of P < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. GraphPad Prism version 5.03 Software for Windows (GraphPad Software, La Jolla, California, USA) was used.