Factors associated with initiation and persistence of urate-lowering therapy

Table 1 Baseline variables at time of gout diagnosis, ULT start and for ULT stop

	At gout diagnosis	At ULT start	^aAt ULT stop
n	7709	2460	1571
Male sex, %	68.4	71.9	71.3
Age, mean	66.5	68.2	68.2
Level of education^b: 9 years or less, %	35.1	37.5	38.2
Level of education: 10–12 years, %	41.8	41.8	42.5
Level of education: more than 12 years, %	19.2	17.2	16.4
Metabolic cardiovascular comorbidity index (MCCI)^c, %
0	53.1	42.5	43.4
1–2	34.9	41.0	39.5
3–4	11.4	15.6	16.0
5–6	0.6	0.9	1.2
>6	0.00	0.00	0.00
Renal disease^d, %	12.1	17.8	18.8
”Normal kidney function”^e, %	62.9	50.4	53.2
“Reduced kidney function”^f, %	31.1	41.9	38.6
^“Severely reduced kidney function”^g, %	5.7	7.5	7.8
^“End-stage kidney failure”^h, %	0.3	0.2	0.4
2011,%	33.4	26.1	13.3
2012, %	33.0	35.8	36.4
2013, %	33.7	38.1	50.4

ULT urate-lowering treatment
^aDefined as no ULT dispensation ≥125 days since last dispensation
^bMissing data for level of education: 3.8% at gout diagnosis, 3.5% at ULT start and 2.9% at ULT stop
^cFor definition (ICD-10 codes) of metabolic cardiovascular comorbidity index see Additional file 2: Table S2
^dFor definition (ICD-10 codes) of renal disease see Additional file 1: Table S1
^eDefined as eGFR >60 mL/min/1.73 m2
^fDefined as eGFR 60–31 mL/min/1.73 m2
^gDefined as eGFR 30–10 mL/min/1.73 m2
^hDefined as eGFR <10 mL/min/1.73 m2
^e-hCreatinine value closest to date of first gout diagnosis within 1 year before until 1 month after, a third (2555) of the incident cases did not have a creatinine value within 1 year before and 1 month after. The vast majority of these, 95%, did not have renal disease. For more details, see Additional file 3: Table S3.

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