Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • News & Views
  • Published:

GOUT

Are the days of missed or delayed diagnosis of gout over?

Gout diagnostic criteria help focus attention on the accurate and early diagnosis of gout. New recommendations reinforce that joint aspiration and demonstration of monosodium urate crystals remains the gold standard for a diagnosis of gout and should be attempted in every patient with suspected gout.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Relevant articles

Open Access articles citing this article.

Access options

Buy this article

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Fig. 1: True-positive, false-positive and false-negative imaging findings for MSU deposition in a 68-year-old man with tophaceous and erosive gout.

References

  1. Smith, E. et al. The global burden of gout: estimates from the Global Burden of Disease 2010 study. Ann. Rheum. Dis. 73, 1470–1476 (2014).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Richette, P. et al. 2018 updated European League Against Rheumatism evidence-based recommendations for the diagnosis of gout. Ann. Rheum. Dis. https://doi.org/10.1136/annrheumdis-2019-215315 (2019).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  3. Janssens, H. J. et al. A diagnostic rule for acute gouty arthritis in primary care without joint fluid analysis. Arch. Intern. Med. 170, 1120–1126 (2010).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Zhang, W. et al. EULAR evidence based recommendations for gout. Part I: Diagnosis. Report of a task force of the Standing Committee for International Clinical Studies Including Therapeutics (ESCISIT). Ann. Rheum. Dis. 65, 1301–1311 (2006).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  5. O’Sullivan, J. B. Gout in a New England town. A prevalence study in Sudbury, Massachusetts. Ann. Rheum. Dis. 31, 166–169 (1972).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Qaseem, A. et al. Diagnosis of acute gout: a clinical practice guideline from the American College of Physicians. Ann. Intern. Med. 166, 52–57 (2017).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Choi, H. K. et al. Purine-rich foods, dairy and protein intake, and the risk of gout in men. N. Engl. J. Med. 350, 1093–1103 (2004).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  8. Li, B. et al. A point-of-care Raman spectroscopy-based device for the diagnosis of gout and pseudogout: comparison with the clinical standard microscopy. Arthritis Rheumatol. 68, 1751–1757 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Stamp, L. K. et al. Clinical utility of multi-energy spectral photon-counting computed tomography in crystal arthritis. Arthritis Rheumatol. 71, 1158–1162 (2019).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  10. Huber, F. A. et al. Spectral photon-counting for gout diagnosis in plain radiography: a feasibility study [Abstract]. Insights Imaging 10 (Suppl. 1), S397 (2019).

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jasvinder A. Singh.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

J.A.S. declares that he has received consultant fees from Crealta/Horizon, Medisys, Fidia, UBM LLC, Medscape, WebMD, Clinical Care options, Clearview Healthcare Partners, Putnam Associates, Spherix, the NIH and the American College of Rheumatology; owns stock options in Amarin pharmaceuticals and Viking therapeutics; is a member of the executive of OMERACT, an organization that develops outcome measures in rheumatology and receives arms-length funding from 36 companies; serves on the FDA Arthritis Advisory Committee; is a member of the Veterans Affairs Rheumatology Field Advisory Committee; is the editor and the Director of the UAB Cochrane Musculoskeletal Group Satellite Center on Network Meta-analysis; and previously served as a member of the following committees: member of the American College of Rheumatology’s (ACR) Annual Meeting Planning Committee (AMPC) and Quality of Care Committees, Chair of the ACR Meet-the-Professor, Workshop and Study Group Subcommittee and co-chair of the ACR Criteria and Response Criteria subcommittee.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Singh, J.A. Are the days of missed or delayed diagnosis of gout over?. Nat Rev Rheumatol 15, 578–580 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41584-019-0286-7

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41584-019-0286-7

This article is cited by

Search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing