2011 Gout treatment and comorbidities

Description: Gout prevalence increased in recent years to become one of the most common causes of inflammatory arthritis in most industrialised countries. Comorbidities may affect the disease severity and treatment patterns. We describe the main characteristics of gout patients, gout-related treatment patterns and prevalent comorbidities in a managed care population.
Conclusions Comorbidities affected gout treatment patterns and the occurrence and frequency of acute attacks. Cardiometabolic comorbidities, common in this patients' population, were associated with an increased risk of flares.
Gout treatment and comorbidities: a retrospective cohort study in a large US managed care population. Primatesta P, Plana E, Rothenbacher D BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders 2011, 12:10 (full text)