Baseline characteristics for study participants
Table 2 lists patient characteristics with rheumatoid arthritis, their
comorbidities, and their treatment status with or without biologic
agents. We found a total of 19,681 patients with RA in the Longitudinal
Health Insurance Database 2005 (LHID 2005). Of those, 19,323 patients
were older than sixteen years old, while the remaining 358 patients were
sixteen years old or younger. In total, the sample included 12,720
female patients and 6,961 male patients. Basically, the biologics users
accounted for only a few patients compared to non-biologics users. Only
156 patients among the LHID 2005 cohort used biologics. We observed no
statistical significance regarding using biologics between those older
and younger than sixteen years old (p=0.61). On the other hand, we
observed significant differences between male and female patients using
biologics (p<0.0001).