The individuals lay comfortably on a flat bed in a supine position to record their breathing pattern and thoracoabdominal motion. One pillow was placed under the head and another under the knees. Oxygen saturation and pulse rate were registered. The QDC method was applied, and the individual remained in this position for about 30 min. The preoperative variables were collected no more than 7 days before surgery. The procedure was repeated in Group I at 1 and 6 months after surgery (approximately 4 days). The procedures

for the control group were the same as those used for the obese patients. However, their BMI was also verified to ensure inclusion criteria. The control group was analyzed only once. Data are reported as means ± standard deviation. A distribution analysis was performed using the Kolmogorov–Smirnov test. To compare demographic, anthropometric and spirometric selleck inhibitor data between Group I

and Group II subjects, a Student’s t-test for unpaired samples was used when the distribution was considered normal and a Mann–Whitney U when the distribution was not normal. For BMI, breathing pattern and thoracoabdominal motion variables, comparisons between preoperative and postoperative (at 1 and 6 months after sugery) values were performed using a repeated measures ANOVA followed by Tukey’s post hoc test when the distribution was normal; the Friedman and Wilcoxon tests were used when the distribution was not normal. The level of significance (α) was set at 0.05 (two-tailed) for all

tests. For variables analyzed AZD2281 mw by ANOVA, the power of the results was also calculated ( Portney and Watkins, 2000). Data were analyzed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences software (SPSS 13.0, Chicago, IL, USA). Thirty-one individuals were selected for this study; nine of them had obesity grade II, and 22 exhibited obesity grade III. One patient with obesity grade III was excluded, due to complications during the anesthetic induction that interrupted the surgery. Therefore, 30 obese patients were studied. Thirty non-obese individuals matched for sex and age were selected as the control group. A total of 20885 respiratory Arachidonate 15-lipoxygenase cycles were analyzed, including 15693 cycles of obese patients (5495 preoperatively, 5036 one month after surgery and 5162 six months after surgery). Although 90 steady state traces were initially planned (3 on each of the 30 patients), only 81 were conducted. The missing traces included four traces discarded for exhibiting artifacts and excess irregularities, one trace not collected because of non-attendance at the 1-month-postoperative visit and four traces not collected because of non-attendance at the 6-month-postoperative visit). In the control group, 5192 cycles were analyzed. Table 1 shows the demographic, anthropometric and spirometric data of both groups. No significant differences were observed in age, sex, height, pulse rate or SaO2.