Table 1:

Patient baseline characteristics

CharacteristicNo. (%) of patients*
n = 71 642
Sociodemographic information
 Age, yr, mean ± SD50.5 ± 17.4
 Men27 252 (38.0)
Ethnicity
 White61 637 (86.0)
 Black776 (1.1)
 Asian2316 (3.2)
Index of multiple deprivation
 1st (least deprived)13 139 (18.3)
 5th (most deprived)11 883 (16.6)
Body mass index in kg/m2, mean ± SD25.7 ± 5.3
Chronic inflammatory disease†
 Giant cell arteritis3219 (4.5)
 Inflammatory bowel disease25 162 (35.1)
 Polymyalgia rheumatica16 385 (22.9)
 Rheumatoid arthritis20 214 (28.2)
 Systemic lupus erythematosus3329 (4.7)
 Vasculitis4473 (6.2)
Comorbidities
 Cardiovascular diseases3794 (5.3)
 Stage 3 or 4 chronic kidney disease797 (1.1)
 Scleroderma57 (0.2)
Non-oral glucocorticoids in last year
 Inhaled5606 (7.8)
 Nasal3811 (5.3)
 Intramuscular297 (0.4)
 Topical1306 (1.8)
 Rectal3411 (4.8)

  • Note: SD = standard deviation.

  • ↵* Unless stated otherwise.

  • ↵† Figures include patients with prevalent and incident disease, and some patients could have more than 1 disease.