Table 1.

Patient demographics and baseline characteristics

Characteristics	Patients (N=417)
Sex, n (%)
Male	217 (52.0)
Female	200 (48.0)
Age, mean (±SD)/median (min, max), years	11.2 (7.2)/10.0 (0, 53)
Age at disease onset,* mean (±SD)/median (min, max), years	5.4 (3.9)/4.0 (0, 17)
Disease duration,* mean (±SD)/median (min, max), years	5.8 (5.9)/4.1 (0, 35)
Patients presenting with disease symptoms (baseline), n (%)
Fever	149 (35.7)
Rash	119 (28.5)
Cervical lymphadenopathy	55 (13.2)
Axillary lymphadenopathy	16 (3.8)
Inguinal lymphadenopathy†	13 (3.1)
Hepatomegaly†	33 (7.9)
Splenomegaly†	27 (6.5)
Serositis†	28 (6.7)
Systemic feature score,† n (%)
0	255 (61.2)
1	35 (8.4)
2	53 (12.7)
≥3	73 (17.5)
Concomitant conditions, n (%)
Respiratory disease‡	33 (7.9)
Cardiac functional disorders	4 (1.0)
Liver disorder	44 (10.6)
Renal dysfunction	13 (3.1)
Gastrointestinal tract disturbance	42 (10.1)
Diabetes mellitus	10 (2.4)
Prior biologic use, n (%)	13 (3.1)
Prior DMARD use, n (%)	181 (43.4)
Methotrexate	108 (25.9)
Prior corticosteroids use, n (%)	367 (88.0)
Corticosteroid dosage, mean (±SD), mg/kg/day	0.8 (2.7)

*N=398.

†N=416.

‡Respiratory disease included asthma, atelectasis, chronic bronchitis, bronchopulmonary dysplasia, interstitial lung disease, pleurisy, pulmonary hypertension, allergic rhinitis and sleep apnoea syndrome.

DMARD, disease-modifying antirheumatic drug; max, maximum; min, minimum.