Gout is common among patients with CKD, but managing the condition can be challenging in those with multiple comorbidities. Although most treatment of gout occurs in primary care settings, relatively little is known about changes in treatment patterns and outcomes after patients transition to nephrology care.<\/p>\n
To address this knowledge gap, investigators used the Optum Clinformatics Data Mart database to analyze insurance claims from 2,765 adults with gout who had an initial nephrology visit between 2016 and 2025. Patients were required to have continuous insurance enrollment for 1 year before and 2 years after their first nephrology visit. Changes in gout management and clinical outcomes were assessed in successive 6-month intervals.<\/p>\n
The study population had a mean age of 73 years. Most were men (64%) and had CKD (84%). Other common comorbidities included hyperlipidemia (78%), hypertension (52%), and diabetes (51%).<\/p>\n
Serum urate testing increased from 50% in the 6 months before the initial nephrology visit to 57% during the first 6 months afterward. Oral urate-lowering therapy prescribing also increased from 65% before to 71% after the visit.<\/p>\n
Gout flares were most frequent during the first 6 months after nephrology referral, affecting 18% of patients, but declined to 9% during months 18 to 24. Gout-related emergency department visits decreased from 1.7% to 0.9%, and oral nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug prescribing declined from 9% to 7% between the pre- and post-referral periods.<\/p>\n
Despite these changes, average daily doses of allopurinol and febuxostat remained largely unchanged, as did the mean proportion of days covered for both medications (55%-61%).<\/p>\n
The investigators concluded that nephrology referral may provide an opportunity to improve gout management among patients with high comorbidity burdens, particularly those with CKD.<\/p>\n
They suggested that additional efforts to optimize gout care in nephrology practice could further improve patient outcomes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gout is common among patients with CKD, but managing the condition can be challenging in those with multiple…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":636492,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[134,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-636491","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-health","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=636491"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636491\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/636492"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=636491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=636491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=636491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}