musculoskeletal and connective tissue disorders
Gout
Prognosis for Gout
With early gout diagnosis, life-long urate-lowering therapy enables most patients to live a normal life. For many patients with advanced disease, aggressive lowering of the serum urate level can resolve tophi and improve joint function. Gout is generally more severe in patients whose initial symptoms appear before age 30 and whose baseline serum uric acid level is > 9 mg/dL (> 0.5 mmol/L). The high prevalence of metabolic syndrome and cardiovascular disease probably increases mortality in patients with gout. Some patients do not improve sufficiently with treatment. The usual reasons include inadequate education provided to patients, nonadherence, alcoholism, and mainly undertreatment of the hyperuricemia by physicians. 