ACCORDING to new data, cardiovascular disease risk for patients with gout is highest in females younger than 45 years. Gout is a common type of arthritis, known to cause pain, swelling, and tenderness of joints in the feet, ankles, hands, wrists, elbows, and knees.
“Although numerous studies have assessed the association of gout with atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease, fewer high-quality studies have assessed its association with other cardiovascular diseases, such as valve disease, venous thromboembolism, heart failure, pericarditis, and infective endocarditis,” stated Lyn Ferguson, University of Glasgow, UK.
The study, therefore, aimed to target this research area, investigating how cardiovascular risk varies across specific conditions. To do this, a matched case-control study was conducted, selecting patients aged 80 years or younger at the time of first gout diagnosis, between 2000–2017. Notably, these patients were reportedly free of cardiovascular disease for up to 12 months afterward.
Data was collected from the electronic health records from the UK Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD). Overall, the study was comprised of 152,663 patients with gout, 20.6% of whom subsequently developed cardiovascular disease over a median follow-up period of 6.5 years. These participants were then matched against 709,981 controls, 15% of whom had developed cardiovascular disease.
A Cox proportional hazard model identified a substantial elevation in cardiovascular risk for those with gout compared to controls (hazard ratio [HR]: 1.58; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.52–1.63), particularly among females (HR: 1.88; 95% CI: 1.75–2.02), and those aged 45 years or younger (HR: 2.22; 95% CI: 1.92–2.57). The researchers then adjusted the model to account for cardiovascular risk factors, such as blood pressure, BMI, and smoking status, concluding that these factors “attenuated but did not eliminate” the excess risk for cardiovascular disease (adjusted HR: 1.31; 95% CI: 1.27–1.36).
