Table 2. Baseline characteristics of patients treated with gemcitabine and huachansu or gemcitabine and placebo.

	Treatment arm
	Gemcitabine + huachansu		Gemcitabine + placebo		Total
Characteristic	No. of patients	%	No. of patients	%	No. of patients	%	P a
Gender
Male	23	58.97	23	62.16	46	60.53	0.776
Female	16	41.03	14	37.84	30	39.47
Stage
Metastatic	29	74.36	29	78.38	58	76.32	0.680
Locally advanced	10	25.64	8	21.62	18	23.68
Location of the tumour in the pancreas
Head	17	43.59	14	37.84	31	40.79	0.803
Body	9	23.08	8	21.62	17	22.37
Tail	13	33.33	15	40.54	28	36.84
Prior surgery
Yes	4	10.26	5	13.51	9	11.84	0.733b
No	35	89.74	32	86.49	70	92.11
Prior chemotherapy
Yes	4	10.26	0	0.00	4	5.26	0.116b
No	35	89.74	37	100.00	75	98.68
Age (years)	60.2±9.5		61.7±9.9		60.9±9.6		0.525c
Karnofsky performance status	84.9±6.5		85.4±5.1		85.1±5.8		0.690d

^aχ².

^bFisher’s test.

^cStudent’s t-test.

^dMann–Whitney test.