Patient Characteristicsa.

aResults are median (interquartile range) unless noted.bThis group of patients provided two samples each, one from a stable state and one from an APE state at admission for a hospitalization. Data shown here are derived from the time point of the stable sample collection for each individual.cThe 26 patients that gave paired samples necessarily suffered an APE during the study in order to give the necessary APE state sputums. This criterion selected patients with significantly lower lung function, t-test p = 0.005, increased incidence of CF-related diabetes, χ-square pt-test p = 0.01 and more frequent APE (differences not tested due to confounding) than the other patients in the study.dPatients in Validation Group 1 had higher FEV1% and 5-year predicted survival and remarkably no incidence of CF-related diabetes. Despite these differences, the coefficients for HMGB-1 reported in Table 7 for Validation Groups 1 and 2 are quite similar to those for Study Group 1 patients and pass testing for mutual consistency.eThe 5-year predicted survival is a clinically useful composite estimate of overall disease state in CF but may be difficult to use in interpretation of inflammatory states. Similar to lung function and other clinical markers of disease, it may require years to see a change [2].