Table 1.

Baseline demographic and biomedical characteristics of hemodialysis patients by treatment group

Variable	Daily group (n=88)	Pulse group (n=79)	P-value
Age (years)	58.26 (12.7)	56.84 (14.3)	0.498
Gender, n (%)			0.645
Female	41 (46.6)	34 (43.0)
Male	47 (53.4)	45 (57.0)
Diabetes status, n (%)			0.524
Diabetic	50 (56.8)	41 (51.9)
Nondiabetic	38 (43.2)	38 (48.1)
Duration on dialysis (years)	3.7 (3.2)	3.7 (3.5)	0.976
Serum PTH pg/mL	528.4 (550.8)	552.4 (467.5)	0.762
Serum corrected calcium mg/dL	8.9 (0.9)	8.9 (0.9)	0.831
Serum phosphate mg/dL	5.2 (1.5)	5.3 (1.56)	0.665
Alfacalcidol tablets (mcg)	0.7 (0.5)	0.8 (0.6)	0.440
Calcium tablets (mg)	2.6 (2.3)	2.2 (2.1)	0.212
Calcium acetate tablets (mg)	0.7 (1.6)	1.0 (1.9)	0.337
Sevelamer tablets (mg)	0.78 (1.4)	1.2 (2.1)	0.151

Notes: Data are mean (SD), unless otherwise stated.

Abbreviations: PTH, parathyroid hormone; SD, standard deviation.