Serum uric acid as an index of impaired renal function in congestive heart failure.
BACKGROUND
Hyperuricemia is frequently present in patients with heart failure. Many pathological conditions, such as tissue ischemia, renal function impairment, cardiac function impairment, metabolic syndrome, and inflammatory status, may impact uric acid (UA) metabolism. This study was to assess their potential relations to UA metabolism in heart failure.


METHODS
We retrospectively assessed clinical characteristics, echocardiological, renal, metabolic and inflammatory variables selected on the basis of previous evidence of their involvement in cardiovascular diseases and UA metabolism in a large cohort of randomly selected adults with congestive heart failure (n = 553). By clustering of indices, those variables were explored using factor analysis.


RESULTS
In factor analysis, serum uric acid (SUA) formed part of a principal cluster of renal functional variables which included serum creatinine (SCr) and blood urea nitrogen (BUN). Univariate correlation coefficients between variables of patients with congestive heart failure showed that the strongest correlations for SUA were with BUN (r = 0.48, P < 0.001) and SCr (r = 0.47, P < 0.001).


CONCLUSIONS
There was an inverse relationship between SUA levels and measures of renal function in patients with congestive heart failure. The strong correlation between SUA and SCr and BUN levels suggests that elevated SUA concentrations reflect an impairment of renal function in heart failure.
Emergency Department, The First Hospital of Hebei Medical University, Hebei Medical University, 89 Donggang Road, Shijiazhuang 050031, Hebei Province, China.
Yu
Y
Tian
Ying
Y
Chen
Bao
B
Deng
Gang
G
Liu
Zhen-Guo
ZG
Ji
Qing-Zhen
QZ
Zhao
Yu-Zhi
YZ
Zhen
Yan-Qiu
YQ
Gao
Li
L
Tian
Le
L
Wang
Li-Shuang
LS
Ji
Guo-Ping
GP
Ma
Kun-Shen
KS
Liu
Chao
C
Liu