Fig. 4

a Differences in epigenetic and chronological age per patient. Each line represents an individual patient. The calculated epigenetic age is larger than the chronological age in 9 out of 16 cases with fibrotic progress (65,3%), in the group with stable disease this is the case in only 3 out of 17 cases (17,6%, Chi²-test, p = 0.021). b Differences in epigenetic and chronological age per disease group. Comparing the mean epigenetic age and the mean chronological age between both sample sets it turns out that the mean of the „PhenoAge “ is statistically significantly higher in the group showing fibrotic progression (FP) compared to the stable disease (SD) group (p = 0.003 Mann–Whitney-U test), whereas the mean chronological age is very similar in both disease groups