Table 1.

Characteristics of GCA cohorts

	Medicare cohort (n=734)	MarketScan cohort (n=1022)
Baseline demographics and comorbidities
Age	77.1 (7.4)	68.4 (10.9)
Male	27.5	29.8
Geographic region
Northeast	88.2	16.4
Midwest	<2.0+	18.5
South	9.7	25.6
West	1.5	11.4
Baseline comorbidities
Hypertension	80.1	72.2
Hyperlipidemia	70.7	61.4
Cancer	38.3	24.3
Coronary artery disease	33.9	25.4
Diabetes	34.6	31.0
Stroke or TIA	22.3	24.3
Chronic kidney disease	19.2	13.0
Diverticulitis	15.0	12.9
Rheumatoid arthritis	13.4	11.3
Chronic liver disease	7.8	6.8
Herpes zoster	2.7	3.5
Claims-based frailty index category
Robust	24.0	34.0
Prefrail	48.9	52.6
Mildly frail	21.7	11.8
Moderately/severely frail	5.4	1.6
Combined comorbidity score	2.9 (3.2)	2.1 (2.6)
Number of hospitalizations	0.7 (1.1)	0.5 (0.8)
Number of rheumatology visits	1.4 (2.2)	0.8 (1.7)
GCA diagnostics within 30 days of index date
Temporal artery biopsy performed	83.7	79.7
ESR test ordered	92.0	62.3
CRP test ordered	81.7	54.6
CT angiogram ordered	4.4	5.5
MR angiogram ordered	<2.0+	1.0
PET-CT ordered	1.5	0.7
GCA-related treatments within 30 days of index date
Prednisone maximum dose ≥60mg daily*	87.1	90.5
Tocilizumab (intravenous or subcutaneous)	<2.0+	4.5
Methotrexate	2.7	4.4
Trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole, atovaquone, or dapsone	13.2	10.0
Vaccines in the year before index date
Influenza vaccine	64.5	27.7
Pneumococcal vaccine**	28.3	33.2
Herpes zoster vaccine**	<2.0+	1.7
Vaccines in the year after index date
Influenza vaccine	56.0	22.1
Pneumococcal vaccine**	32.8	27.0
Herpes zoster vaccine**	<2.0+	0.6

Presented as % or mean (standard deviation)

^*All patients were prescribed prednisone ≥40mg daily

^**Not an annually-administered vaccine

⁺The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid prohibits reporting of data with cell size <11