Up-to-date management of gout.

PURPOSE OF REVIEW

Gout is a true crystal deposition disease, extremely painful and bone and tissue damaging if untreated. It is the only curable form of arthritis. Although we have many treatments to cure gout, it is a disease that is consistently undertreated/mismanaged and perceived by clinicians and the lay public as a 'laughable condition' with the patients' lifestyle often held erroneously to account. This article would give you a good understanding of modern and established pharmacological and nonpharmacological treatments used in the management of acute and chronic gout and how to 'treat to target' to cure the disease.

RECENT FINDINGS

Many of the drugs we use to manage patients with gouty arthritis have been in existence since the 1970s and 1980s. In the past few years, because of the improved physiological understanding of gout, new innovative treatments such as anti-IL inhibitors, a nonxanthine oxidase inhibitor and the uricase enzymes have been developed adding to our armamentarium of drugs.

SUMMARY

With the introduction of new research, we have been able to explore how to also use established treatments more effectively, raising the profile of gout and its best management and introducing the principle of treating the patient to urate target.