*2.11. Statistical Analysis*

Statistical analysis was performed using GraphPad Prism 8 for Mac (GraphPad Software, La Jolla, USA). The Shapiro–Wilk test was used to determine the normality of distribution while one-way ANOVA and Tukey's multiple comparisons test were used to compare the tested groups. The value of *p* < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Multiplicity adjusted p value vas also calculated. The results were presented as mean ± SD. The correlation of the obtained results was measured using

the Pearson correlation coefficient. The number of patients was set a priori based on the previous clinical study. Online sample size calculator (ClinCalc) was used and 0.9 was assumed as the test power.
