Prophylaxis for Pneumocystis pneumonia in patients with rheumatoid arthritis treated with biologics, based on risk factors found in a retrospective study

Table 3 Comparison of baseline characteristics of patients with vs. without Pneumocystis pneumonia in no-prophylaxis group ^a

Characteristics	PCP group	Non-PCP group	P-value
Patients (n)	9	552
Observation period (person-years)	12.5	839.4
Age (years)	69.5 ± 7.63	57.9 ± 14.1	0.001
Duration of RA (months)	76.3 ± 73.8	112.9 ± 116.5	0.634
DAS28 score (ESR)	6.51 ± 1.28	5.85 ± 1.29	0.060
Coexisting pulmonary disease (%)	77.8	28.1	0.002
Diabetes mellitus (%)	0.00	10.7	0.156
Dose of prednisolone (mg)	8.83 ± 14.9	1.70 ± 2.57	0.004
Glucocorticoids (%)^b	88.9	39.9	0.009
Dose of methotrexate (mg/w)	6.56 ± 5.23	7.29 ± 4.10	0.695
Serum level of IgG (mg/dl)	1,600 ± 714	1,620 ± 511	0.660
Serum level of KL-6 (U/ml)	429 ± 218	257 ± 138	0.008

^aDAS28: Disease Activity Score in 28 joints; ESR: Erythrocyte sedimentation rate; IgG: immunoglobulin G; PCP: Pneumocystis pneumonia; RA: Rheumatoid arthritis. ^bGlucocorticoid data are percentages of patients treated with glucocorticoids.
Patient age, the complication of pulmonary disease, the use and dose of glucocorticoids and the serum level of KL-6 were significantly different between the two groups. Data are mean ± SD by Wilcoxon rank-sum test unless otherwise specified.

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