Compared with placebo, urate-lowering therapy with once-daily febuxostat at 40mg (or 80mg if serum uric acid was ≥6 mg/dL after 14 days) in patients with early gout (hyperuricaemia and ≤2 gout flares; n = 183) reduced MRI-detected synovitis (change from baseline RAMRIS score of −0.43 versus −0.07; P < 0.001), decreased the incidence of disease flares (29.3% versus 41.4%; P < 0.05) and increased the proportion of patients obtaining a serum uric acid level of <6 mg/dL (62.8% versus 5.7%; P < 0.001) after 24 months. However, treatment with febuxostat did not cause detectable changes in joint erosion over 2 years.
References
Dalbeth, N. et al. Effects of febuxostat in early gout: a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study. Arthritis Rheumatol. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/art.40233 (2017)
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Collison, J. Febuxostat reduces synovitis in early gout. Nat Rev Rheumatol 13, 694 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrrheum.2017.176
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrrheum.2017.176