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Obesity Epidemic Is Skewing Face of Gout

SNOWMASS, COLO. – A disturbing proportion of gout cases are mismanaged by primary care physicians, and the blame falls squarely upon rheumatologists, according to one prominent gout expert.

"As rheumatologists, gout is our disease. The cause and pathophysiology are well understood, we can make the diagnosis with absolute certainty, and we’ve got great medicines. Yet today we all see people with tophi. That’s tragic. It shouldn’t exist. One of our biggest mistakes has been not being able to educate primary care physicians that having a tophus is bad, that it’s eroding cartilage and bone, and that it’s something we can prevent if we start urate-lowering therapy soon enough," Dr. Robert L. Wortmann said at the conference.

An estimated 8.3 million Americans have gout. Yet, the pharmaceutical industry says only 3.1 million of them are prescribed urate-lowering drugs. Five different studies show that a mere 40% of those on allopurinol are prescribed a dose sufficient to drive serum uric acid below 6 mg/dL, a key tenet of gout management, noted Dr. Wortmann, professor of medicine at Dartmouth Medical School in Hanover, N.H.

Moreover, poor treatment adherence is a huge problem in gout. A study of close to 4,200 gout patients started on urate-lowering drug therapy found that 56% of them were nonadherent (Arthritis Res. Ther. 2009;11(2):R46).

"I charge you all to go back from this meeting and try to communicate with all the primary care physicians you can about the principles of managing gout. People shouldn’t suffer from this," the rheumatologist declared.

He offered these major take home points:

Don’t prescribe urate-lowering drugs for asymptomatic hyperuricemia: This practice hasn’t been shown to prevent the future development of gout, yet it exposes patients to the risk of drug toxicities.

But don’t ignore asymptomatic hyperuricemia, either: Epidemiologic studies have linked asymptomatic hyperuricemia, defined by a serum urate in excess of 6.8 mg/dL, to increased risks of hypertension, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, chronic kidney disease, and all-cause mortality. The big unanswered question is whether using medications to lower serum urate in individuals with asymptomatic hyperuricemia reduces the risk of any of these conditions. That’s the subject of ongoing large clinical trials in high-risk patients. If those studies prove positive, clinical practice will change.

While awaiting the outcome of the prevention trials, it’s worth bearing in mind that Framingham Heart Study data indicate that individuals with a serum uric acid level above 9 mg/dL have a 22% chance of developing gout within the next 5 years. The major contributors to asymptomatic hyperuricemia include obesity, metabolic syndrome, and heavy consumption of fructose-containing beverages or alcohol. Those issues should be addressed.

Losartan is the only antihypertensive agent that’s uricosuric. Fenofibrate is the sole uricosuric drug indicated for dyslipidemia. Preferential consideration could be given to the use of these drugs in hypertensive and/or hyperlipidemic patients with asymptomatic hyperuricemia.