Table 1.

Baseline characteristics of patients in the ICS and non-ICS groups

Characteristic	ICS group		Non-ICS group		p-value
	N	%	N	%
All patients	10,219	63.3	5930	36.7
Gender (% male)	5346	52.3	3200	54.0	0.043 a
Age
40–49 years	778	7.6	329	5.5	<0.0001 b
50–59 years	1977	19.3	1063	17.9
60–69 years	3389	33.2	1979	33.4
70–79 years	2848	27.9	1819	30.7
80–89 years	1149	11.2	708	11.9
>90 years	78	0.8	32	0.5
Year of diagnosis
2005	601	77.4	175	22.6	<0.0001 b
2006	1332	76.6	408	23.4
2007	1309	75.0	437	25.0
2008	1300	72.1	503	27.9
2009	1241	67.0	610	33.0
2010	1105	61.0	707	39.0
2011	1051	56.3	815	43.7
2012	922	54.5	771	45.5
2013	704	48.4	750	51.6
2014	527	46.2	613	53.8
2015	127	47.4	141	52.6
Comorbidities
Asthma
Historic	331	3.2	162	2.7	0.0709
Concurrent	3568	34.9	730	12.3	<0.0001
Stroke	311	3.0	195	3.3	0.389
MI	651	6.4	445	7.5	0.006
Diabetes	936	9.2	565	9.5	0.437
Osteoporosis/osteopenia	723	7.1	457	7.7	0.137
Eosinophilia	2514	24.6	1386	23.4	0.079
Pneumonia	360	3.5	193	3.3	0.366
Smoking (current or ex)c	8229	80.5	5112	86.2	<0.0001
BMI
Missing	55	0.5	44	0.7	0.9995
Underweight	379	3.7	235	4.0
Normal	3360	32.9	1936	32.6
Overweight	3640	35.6	2081	35.1
Obese	2785	27.3	1634	27.6
FEV1% predicted
80–100% (GOLD 1)	3433	33.6	1871	31.6	0.0077
50–80% (GOLD 2)	6786	66.4	4059	68.4
Moderate exacerbationsd	157	1.5	52	0.9	0.0004
Region
North East	194	1.9	173	2.9	<0.0001
North West	1525	14.9	865	14.6
Yorkshire and The Humber	284	2.8	118	2.0
East Midlands	273	2.7	76	1.3
West Midlands	932	9.1	500	8.4
East of England	700	6.8	329	5.5
South West	901	8.8	409	6.9
South Central	986	9.6	601	10.1
London	980	9.6	483	8.1
South East Coast	1005	9.8	508	8.6
Northern Ireland	539	5.3	328	5.5
Scotland	770	7.5	750	12.6
Wales	1130	11.1	790	13.3

BMI body mass index, FEV ₁ forced expiratory volume in 1 s, GOLD Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease, MI myocardial infarction

Bold values indicate statistical significance

^a Chi-squared test

^b Cochran Armitage test for trend

^c Ex-smoker and current smoker were pooled due to limitations in CPRD for distinguishing between these two groups

^d In the year prior to COPD diagnosis (the index date)