Vascular mortality in patients with gout and in their families

SUMMARY A mortality study was performed to determine death rates from coronary and cerebro-vascular pathology in 180 patients with gout and their families. Lipid profiles were also analysed. Neither male nor female gout patients after presentation to hospital nor their male or female first-degree relatives were found to have an increased risk of dying from coronary artery or cerebrovascular disease. Families of hyperlipidaemic gout patients had a slightly increased inci-dence among males of death from coronary artery disease, a finding which may reflect the hypercholesterolaemia found among these relatives. It could have influenced the vascular mor-tality rate in families of hyperlipidaemic gout patients without any relationship to the diagnosis of gout itself. Patients with gout theoretically should be at greater risk from vascular disease than the normal popula-tion, since as a group they carry the risk factors of hypertension, hyperlipidaemia, obesity, and the poss-ible risk factor of hyperuricaemia.'-3 The role of hyperuricaemia in the genesis of vascu