Reduced Incidence and Better Liver Disease Outcomes among Chronic HCV Infected Patients Who Consume Cannabis

Table 1

Baseline characteristics of chronic hepatitis C infected patients, by cannabis use status (before propensity matching).

	No Cannabis use	Cannabis use	p-value
n (~weighted)	182587 (~887,975)	4774 (~23,371)
Age, mean (SD)	53.06 (14.15)	40 (12.96)	<0.0001
Gender			0.3599
Male	53.86	54.60
Female	46.14	45.40
Race			<0.0001
White	59.90	66.23
Black	21.63	18.92
Hispanics	12.74	10.73
Others	5.74	4.12
Health insurance			<0.0001
Medicare	33.91	20.92
Medicaid	30.91	46.10
Private	21.00	12.05
Self-pay & others	14.18	20.93
Income			<0.0001
Lowest Quartile	38.04	45.92
Second Quartile	24.42	25.41
Third Quartile	20.99	18.50
Highest Quartile	16.55	10.17
Hospital region			<0.0001
Northeast	24.99	22.23
Midwest	11.72	15.18
South	39.69	39.21
West	23.60	23.38
Hospital teaching status			<0.0001
Rural	7.06	10.35
Urban non-teaching	32.71	33.34
Urban teaching	60.23	56.31
Peripheral vascular disease	2.43	1.05	<0.0001
Congestive heart failure	6.23	2.59	<0.0001
Hypertension	35.92	22.34	<0.0001
Chronic lung disease	16.49	16.21	0.6303
Valvular heart disease	3.14	1.74	<0.0001
Cardiac arrhythmias	10.24	5.29	<0.0001
Chronic kidney disease	12.64	4.49	<0.0001
Cerebral vascular disease	3.45	1.71	<0.0001
Ischemic heart disease	8.68	4.77	<0.0001
Hypothyroidism	7.32	3.65	<0.0001
Hyperthyroidism	0.38	0.38	0.9553
Other substance abuse	15.83	65.38	<0.0001
Malignancies	9.95	3.55	<0.0001
AIDS	2.89	2.59	0.2394