In the past nine years, visits to the emergency department by gout patients have increased by almost 27%. Researchers suggest physicians may not adequately be addressing the burden of gout and the underlying accumulation of uric acid, driving the dramatic increase in emergency department visits in the U.S…
New research raises questions about the cardiovascular safety of febuxostat for gout patients compared with allopurinol. The study found that although febuxostat was noninferior to allopurinol, febuxostat-treated patients had similar overall rates of major adverse cardiovascular events as allopurinol-treated patients, but had higher rates of all-cause mortality and cardiovascular mortality…
(Reuters Health)—Gout sufferers with major pre-existing heart disease face a higher risk of death if they are treated with the drug febuxostat, a large long-term study has concluded. The risk of death from cardiovascular disease was 34% higher with febuxostat than with allopurinol. When researchers considered deaths from any cause, the risk was 22% higher…
Gout patients need to lower their uric acid levels to 6.0 mg/dL or below and maintain that level. According to N. Lawrence Edwards, MD, MACP, MACR, an education campaign has been raising awareness of this fact and helping gout patients…
A 56-year-old African American man presents to the emergency department with polyarthralgias and a fever of 103ºF. One month prior to admission, he presented with right knee pain and swelling. Blood cultures grew S. epidermidis. He was treated for presumed septic arthritis complicated by MSSE bacteremia. He was treated with meropenem and a prolonged course…
WASHINGTON, D.C.—Despite the value of guidelines, they often “are not read,” said N. Lawrence Edwards, MD, professor of medicine specializing in rheumatology at the University of Florida, at the 2016 ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting talk titled, New & Emerging Therapies for Gout, as part of the ACR Review Course. Or if they are read, they aren’t…
In 1982, my wife (also a rheumatologist) and I attended our first American Rheumatism Association (now the ACR) national meeting. After the meeting we stayed with a friend in a suburb of Boston, where we also had the opportunity to meet our hostess’ in-laws, a retired general practitioner and his wife. When her father-in-law shook…
Although gout is one of the most effectively treated of all rheumatic diseases, it is among the worst-managed diseases long term, as shown by many studies. “Treatments are excellent, yet are dramatically under-utilized,” says Theodore Fields, MD, FACP, rheumatologist, Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS), New York. “This is because some gout patients feel better between…
A 55-year-old female patient returns to the office with complaints of gout pain. She is complaining of swelling and a burning pain in her left toe. She has been taking an over-the-counter NSAID to treat the pain, but this has done little to alleviate it. This is her second flare this year. The patient denies…
A recent analysis compared the care of patients with RA with that received by patients with gout, finding that hospitalization and costs for patients with gout have increased, but both are decreasing for patients with RA. Unlike RA, significant advances in treatment have not been made for gout, despite its increasing prevalence, and patients may land in the hospital unnecessarily…