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).