Characteristics of the groups as defined by ciliary ultrastructure in the 820 patients with feasible transmission electron microscopy analysis
| Groups | p-value | ||||
| I | II | III | IV | ||
| Normal | Heterogeneous defects | Main defect | Questionable ultrastructure | ||
| Patients | 533 (65) | 15 (1.8) | 245 (29) | 27 (3.3) | |
| Abnormal cilia % | |||||
| Median | 5 | 28.5 | 100# | ND | <0.0001 |
| IQR | 2–10 | 25–34 | 51–100 | ND | |
| Range | 0–20 | 21–42 | 20.5–100 | ND | |
| Sex ratio F/M | 0.68 | 0.36 | 0.78 | 0.8 | ns |
| Children/adults ratio | 1.09 | 0.87 | 2.06# | 1.7 | <0.001 |
| Situs inversus | 28 (5.2) | 1 (6.7) | 78 (31.8)# | 2 (7.4) | <0.0001 |
| Airway infections | |||||
| Isolated upper | 239 (44.8) | 6 (40) | 1 (0.4) | 4 (14.8) | |
| Isolated lower | 241 (45.2) | 7 (46.7) | 1 (0.4) | 5 (18.5) | |
| Sinopulmonary | 53 (10) | 2 (13.3) | 243 (99.2)¶ | 18 (66.7)¶ | <0.001 |
Data are presented as n (%), unless otherwise indicated. IQR: interquartile range; F/M: female/male; ND: not determined; ns: nonsignificant. p-values are for global comparison between the four groups; if p<0.05, two-by-two comparisons were performed. #: indicates that only this group was significantly different from the other groups; ¶: indicates that the two groups were not different from each other but were significantly different from the other two groups.