title: The safety of treatment options available for gout.
abstract: Gout is the most common inflammatory arthritis in humans. Gout treatment includes rapid initiation of anti-inflammatory medications for acute attacks and chronically treating with urate lowering drugs as well as chronic anti-inflammatory prophylaxis. Areas covered: This review aims to provide an overview and discussion of the safety concerns of current treatment options available for gout. Expert opinion: Gout is a curable disease with appropriate treatment. The advent of new therapies provides encouraging opportunities to improve gout management. However, clinicians should be aware of some of the safety concerns of medications used to treat acute and chronic gout. When prescribing medications for gout one has to be mindful of the presence of comorbidities commonly affecting gout patients that may affect drug safety and efficacy, especially in the elderly and in patients treated with multiple drugs. The benefits of gout drugs, usually, outweigh their safety concerns. Studies are needed in gout patients with chronic kidney disease and/or cardiovascular disease, so that escalation of dosing /combination of anti-inflammatory drugs needed to suppress gouty inflammation as well as escalation of dosing/combination of urate lowering drugs needed to achieve target serum urate level will lead to better understanding of gout treatment safety issues.
authors.affiliation: a Department of Medicine Rutgers , Robert Wood Johnson Medical School , New Brunswick , NJ , USA.
authors.forename: Naomi
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Schlesinger
mesh_terms: D000208:Acute Disease; D000368:Aged; D000893:Anti-Inflammatory Agents / Q000008:administration & dosage / Q000009:adverse effects / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D002908:Chronic Disease; D015897:Comorbidity; D006073:Gout / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000503:physiopathology; D006074:Gout Suppressants / Q000008:administration & dosage / Q000009:adverse effects / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D006801:Humans; D014527:Uric Acid / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D000893:Anti-Inflammatory Agents; D006074:Gout Suppressants; D014527:Uric Acid
keywords: Safety; acute gout; anti-inflammatory drugs; chronic gout; urate lowering drugs; uric acid