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A Deeper Look at Gout How gout affects the body systemically

with Dr Ada Kumar

Dr Ada Kumar details just where gout can go, including places like the heart, the kidneys, the eyes, and more.1-4 The association of gout with multiple comorbidities highlights the need to take action and treat the disease aggressively.

Beyond the Joints: Take a Deeper Look at Gout

Video preview of Beyond the Joints: Take a Deeper Look at Gout
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Dr Kumar: For so many years we thought we knew what gout was. We thought gout was just a joint disease, but we now know through research we have to change that.

Dr Kumar: Over nine million people in this country suffer from gout.5

It’s tophi around the joints that affects the hands…

and the feet…

and the ankle…6

and that’s what people really thought it was. A joint disease that caused pain.

But even looking outside of the joints we’re realizing that there’s urate depositing throughout the body. We’ve seen it deposit in the pancreas,4 in the GI tract.7-9 We’ve seen it deposit in the kidneys. Almost 25% of patients who have chronic kidney disease have gout.10 We also know that about 10-20% of gout patients develop kidney stones—little precipitates of uric acid that causes renal damage and renal disease.

Urate deposits in the cardiovascular system. We’ve seen it deposit in the heart, in the blood vessels including the coronary arteries that are feeding the heart.

We know patients with gout have multiple comorbidities and these comorbidities range from cardiovascular disease to renal disease, metabolic syndrome, and diabetes.

And we also know that these comorbidities are really a cause of mortality in this patient population.

We have to carve gout out as a serious disease that needs prompt and aggressive therapy.

We can no longer think of gout as just a cosmetic deformity. Gout is a systemic disease.11

Watch Dr Ada Kumar’s Vodcast Series to learn more about systemic urate deposition

WATCH HERE

References

  1. Zhu F, et al. Am J Med. 2012;125:679-687.
  2. Krishnan E, et al. Arthritis Rheum. 2013;65:3271-3278.
  3. Klauser A, et al. JAMA Cardiol. 2019;4:1019-1028.
  4. Koh H, et al. BMJ Case Reports. 2016;2016.
  5. Chen-Xu M, et al. Arthritis Rheumatol. 2019;71(6):991-999.
  6. Nicolaou S, et al. Am J Roentgenol. 2012;199:S78-S86.
  7. Härle P. Lancet. 2006;367(9527):2032.
  8. Wu H. Hum Pathol. 2004;35(7):897-899.
  9. Katoch P. Hum Pathol: Case Rep. 2014;1(1):2-5.
  10. Krishnan E. PLoS One. 2012;7(11):e50046.
  11. Doghramji P, et al. Postgrad Med. 2012;124(6):98-109.