Multiple Circulating Cytokines Are Coelevated in Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease

Table 1

Demographic data of subjects.

Group	Never-smokers (NS)	Ex-smokers (ExS)	Current smokers (CS)	COPD GOLD stage 1 (S1)	COPD GOLD stage 2 (S2)	COPD GOLD stage 3 (S3)
Number	11	25	9	7	37	13
Age (yrs)
Median (range)	56 (41–67)	71 (42–80)	69 (42–76)	65 (61–82)	68 (46–82)	67 (47–84)
F/M	6/5	12/13	3/6	2/5	18/19	5/8
FEV1-%
Median (range)	97 (87–134)	98 (74–124)	96 (84–115)	87 (80–103)	62 (51–77)	42 (30–49)
Ex-smokers	0	25	0	4	30	8
Current smokers	0	0	9	3	7	5

The age of the NS group was significantly different from S2; there were no other significant age differences between groups (by Kruskal-Wallis test with Dunn’s post hoc test for multiple comparisons).
The NS, ExS, and CS groups were all significantly different from both S2 and S3 for FEV1-% of predicted, and S1 was significantly different from S3; there were no other significant differences between groups (by Kruskal-Wallis test with Dunn’s post hoc test for multiple comparisons).