Table 1.

Baseline characteristics of patients diagnosed with MRSA (1439 subjects; mean ± SD age 70.3 ± 18.3 years) and a matched population sample free of MRSA (14,090 subjects; mean ± SD age 69.9 ± 18.2 years) from GPRD (2001–2004)

Characteristic	Patients with MRSA		Matched MRSA-free patients
	n	Percentage	n	Percentage
Male	604	42.0%	5988	42.5%
Female	835	58.0%	8102	57.5%
Co-morbidity in the 2 years prior to cohort entry
Diabetes	162	11.3%	877	6.2%
Cardiovascular disease	98	6.8%	467	3.3%
Stroke	74	5.1%	140	1.0%
Peripheral vascular disease	34	2.4%	72	0.5%
COPD	76	5.3%	364	2.6%
Renal failure	45	3.1%	138	1.0%
Cancer	27	1.9%	127	0.9%
Autoimmune disease	12	0.8%	66	0.5%
Drug exposure in the 1 year prior to cohort entry
Oral prednisone use	155	10.8%	858	6.1%
Antibiotics	1019	70.8%	5369	38.1%