The incidence of gout and its metabolic comorbidities in females

期刊連結：http://www.gouthyperuricemia.com

Objective: To investigate the incidence of gout in female population in Taiwan.
Methods: The National Health Research Institute (NHRI) provided one million health beneficiaries for this study, including three diagnosis codes (ICD-9) and prescriptions. We designed a 10-year study (2002-2011) to examine the incidence of gout, and a 12-year study (2000-2011) to explore the associations between gout and its comorbidities for those over 20 years of age.
Exclusion criteria included those with DM, chronic kidney diseases, acute myocardial infarction, occlusion of cerebral arteries and osteoarthritis diagnosed within one year of gout onset. A total of 4612 new female gout patients were included and matched to 17082 female non-gout patients by age and the date of initial gout diagnosis by the same month and year, with a ratio of 1:4.
Results: The results showed that in 2002, there were 1.76 new female gout cases per 1000-person-years and the incidence decreased to 0.11 in 2011. Age of gout onset usually occurred after 50 years of age, and the onset ages increased year by year. Female gout patients had more comorbidities of hyperlipidemia (39.83% vs 5.29%), obesity (1.28% vs 0.18%) and hypertension (34.00% vs 11.29%) than non-gout patients (all p<0.001). Those patients with DM (SIR=4.26, 95% CI=3.83-4.74), hyperlipidemia (SIR=7.66, 95% CI=6.63-8.84), obesity (SIR=2.01, 95% CI=1.74-2.33) or hypertension (SIR=8.48, 95% CI=6.64-10.83) had higher incidences of gout than those without the diseases.
Conclusion: Gout incidence decreased year by year from 2002 to 2011 in the female population in Taiwan, and there are mutual associations between gout and its comorbidities.