More patients in the ESMI group made progress in their ESC after the eight-week intervention, compared with those in the C and PE groups. Significant differences in the number of patients who progressed in their ESC were identified among the three groups at T1 (p < 0.01), T2 (p < 0.01) and T3(p < 0.01), when the chi-square test was adopted to analyze the data (Table 4)