New Onset Gout After Kidney Transplant

In a study presented at the Clinical Congress of Rheumatology West held in San Diego last month, researchers led by Brian LaMoreaux, M.D., report that gout was found to be a “a common comorbidity in renal transplant patients.” (©ShutterRyderShutterstock.com)

Even though gout is a known comorbidity among kidney transplant patients, little is known about the number of transplant patients who will develop the condition or how long it might take to appear.

In a study presented at the Clinical Congress of Rheumatology West held in San Diego last month, researchers led by Brian LaMoreaux, M.D., rheumatologist and medical director at Horizon Therapeutics in Columbus, Ohio, report that gout was found to be a “a common comorbidity in renal transplant patients.”

In this retrospective review of Humana Healthcare claims from 2007-2017 of 6,082 patients who had received a kidney transplant, 25 percent (1,505 patients) had a gout diagnosis and of these 15 percent (908) were diagnosed either before or after the transplant, but 10 percent (597) were diagnosed after the transplant slightly less than two years after the transplant (mean time 1.79 ± 1.85 years).

“As expected, gout was a common comorbidity in renal transplant patients. This retrospective analysis demonstrates that kidney transplant patients commonly suffer from gout both before and after their transplant. In addition to more research on this topic, an increased focus on screening and treatment of gout in the renal transplant population may be warranted,” Dr. LaMoreaux and colleagues wrote in a published version of this study which appeared in the June 15, 2019 online issue of the Annals of Rheumatic Diseases.