Serum urate in degenerative joint disease and rheumatoid arthritis

✍ Scribed by Walt F. Weaver; Charley J. Smyth

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1963
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 307 KB
• Volume: 6
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0004-3591
• DOI: 10.1002/art.1780060408

✦ Synopsis

THE DIFFERENTIAL DIAGNOSIS of patients with arthritic symptoms, I the serum urate is frequently determined, and often when gouty arthritis is considered only as a remote possibility, Occasionally an "elevated value is obtained. When the usual causes of an elevation in the serum mate have been searched for and eliminated, this laboratory finding may cause considerable concern and confusion. In these circumstances it is not unusual that patients with rheumatoid arthritis with cystic changes in the bones are falsely interpreted as having gouty arthritis. Lockiel has suggested that the serum urate may be increased in patients with rheumatoid arthritis. In a more recent paper, Grayzel et a1.2 have also suggested this phenomenon. Further difficulty in the interpretation of an elevated serum urate value may be due to the number of different methods that are currently used, each with a different range for normal values. The clinician is frequently not aware of the method used nor the range of normal valces for the particular serum urate method. In the Arthritis Clinic of the University of Colorado, the Archibald modifications of the Kern-Stransky methodl has been used since 19S5.

This study was undertaken to determine the incidence of hyperuricemia in patients with rheumatoid arthritis, and to compare this group with the uric acid values obtained in this same clinic in a series of patients with degenerative arthritis who served as the control group.