Demographic characteristics of the Study Population
Dongting Lake region in Hunan province is one of the most highly endemic for schistosomiasis japonica in history, but to now infection is under control. In this study, we included 135 patients with schistosomiasis from the Dongting Lake region in Changde City, Hunan province, including 84 with chronic schistosomiasis and 51 with advanced schistosomiasis. And 24 healthy volunteers were included in the control group. The demographic characteristics of different groups included in this study were shown in Table 1 . The median age of infected participants and healthy volunteers was 58, 63 and 59 years old. No significant differences were observed between different groups.