Differences between hospitals in attainment of parathyroid hormone treatment targets in chronic kidney disease do not reflect differences in quality of care

Table 3 Correlation between plasma (Ln)PTH levels and potential determinants of plasma PTH

	r	r _s	p
Age (years)	-.10		0.16
Male sex		-.01	0.89
Caucasian race		-.07	0.34
Cause of kidney disease renovascular or different/unknown^*		-.15	0.03
Kidney transplant		.27	<0.001
Diabetes mellitus		.02	0.82
Income (euros/month)	-.16		0.02
BMI (kg/m²)	.00		0.99
Smoking		.01	0.94
Serum calcium (mmol/l)	-.16		0.03
Serum phosphate (mmol/l)	.29		<0.001
(Ln)Proteinuria (g/24u)	.12		0.08
Serum creatinine (μmol/l)	.48		<0.001
eGFR (MDRD-4, ml/min/1.73 m²)	-.48		<0.001
eGFR (MDRD-6, ml/min/1.73 m²)	-.55		<0.001
Center A		.27	<0.001
Alphacalcidol use		.18	0.01
Calciumcarbonate use		.17	0.02
Alphacalcidol and/or calciumcarbonate use		.21	0.003
Furosemide use		.19	0.01
Thiazide use		-.01	0.87
Number of drugs	0.35		<0.001
Blood drawn in summer or fall^*		-.08	0.25

Ln: natural logarithm; PTH: parathyroid hormone; r: Pearson correlation coefficient; r _s: Spearman’s rho correlation coefficient; BMI: body mass index; eGFR: estimated glomerular filtration rate; MDRD: modification of diet in renal disease.
^*Patients classified as having a renovascular or different/unknown cause of kidney disease on average had the lowest (Ln)PTH levels. Therefore these categories were combined. The same holds for patients with blood drawn in summer or fall.

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