Archive for July, 2009
Yet Another Study Shows Primary Care Doctors Often Do Not Correctly Manage Gout
Posted by Victor Konshin in New Research on July 14th, 2009
Another study showing most primary care doctors do not know how to properly manage gout appeared in the journal Rheumatology International this month. This study found that only 27.5% of patients had their uric acid level measured on, at least, an annual basis. This means that doctors where unable to evaluate the effectiveness of uric acid lowering treatment, that is, if they even bothered to prescribe one.
This is another shining example of why it’s important to arm yourself with the facts on how this disease is managed. There is a lot of very bad information out there and this misinformation results in you being in pain! That’s a pretty compelling reason why you should become familiar with the proper and scientifically backed methods of managing this disease. Not to replace your doctor, but to complement his care.
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Is Febuxostat (Uloric®) Really Better Than Allopurinol?
Posted by Victor Konshin in Gout Treatments on July 3rd, 2009
UK’s National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence doesn’t think so. In December it issued guidance that the benefits febuxostat (sold in the US under the brand name Uloric®) have not been clearly demonstrated.
The argument is that the pharmaceutical companies tested febuxostat against a fixed dose of 300mg of allopurinol per day. Even though this is the way most doctors prescribe allopurinol, it is not the best way to use it according the expert “best practices” guidelines. The appropriate way is to adjust the dose of allopurinol until uric acid levels are lowered to below 6mg/dL (333µm/L). Allopurinol can safely be prescribed up to 900mg/day.
Because the pharmaceutical companies did not show that febuxostat was more effective than allopurinol when allopurinol is used this way, and because of the cost and other risks, they concluded that for most people it best to just stick with allopurinol.
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