Hepatocyte growth factor and carotid intima-media thickness in relation to circulating CD34-positive cell levels

Table 1 Characteristics of the study population based on CD34-positive cell levels

	Low CD34-positive cells (≤ 0.93 cells/μL)	High CD34-positive cells (> 0.93 cells/μL)	p
No. of participants	135	134
Age, years	65.5 ± 2.6	65.2 ± 2.6	0.378
Systolic blood pressure, mmHg	136 ± 17	137 ± 18	0.665
Diastolic blood pressure, mmHg	84 ± 12	85 ± 11	0.513
Drinker, %	23.0	23.1	0.974
Smoker, %	16.3	16.4	0.979
Body mass index (BMI), kg/m²	23.1 ± 3.0	24.0 ± 2.8	0.014
Serum triglycerides (TG), mg/dL	89 [66–111]^a	110 [72–138]^a	0.028^b
Serum HDL-cholesterol (HDLc), mg/dL	57 ± 14	57 ± 14	0.744
Serum γ-glutamyltranspeptidase (γ-GTP), IU/L	31 [20–58]^a	35 [23–50]^a	0.379^b
Hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c), %	5.6 ± 0.7	5.8 ± 0.7	0.168
Serum creatinine, mg/dL	0.82 ± 0.14	0.85 ± 0.15	0.065
Glomerular filtration rate (GFR), mL/min/1.73m²	75.0 ± 14.4	71.8 ± 12.6	0.054
Hepatocyte growth factor (HGF), pg/mL	285.6 [215.8–416.9]^a	308.1 [231.6–429.2]^a	0.325^b
White blood cell count (WBC), cells/μL	5325 ± 1460	6217 ± 1348	< 0.001
Carotid intima-media thickness (CIMT), mm	0.70 ± 0.12	0.69 ± 0.13	0.881

Values are mean ± standard deviation
^aValues are median [the first quartile, the third quartile]. Regression model for mean values was used for determining p values
^bLogarithmic transformation was used for evaluating p

ISSN: 1347-4715