Impact of allopurinol use on urate concentration and cardiovascular outcome

AIMS: To characterize patients with urate measurements by urate-lowering therapy (ULT) use and to study the impact of allopurinol treatment on cardiovascular and mortality outcomes. METHODS: A cohort study using a record-linkage database. The study included 7135 patients aged ≥60 years with urate measurements between 2000 and 2002 followed up until 2007. A Cox regression model was used. The association between urate levels, dispensed allopurinol and cardiovascular hospitalization and mortality was determined. RESULTS: Six thousand and forty-two patients were not taking ULT and 45.9% of those (2774 of 6042) had urate concentrations ≤6 mg dl(−1). Among 1035 allopurinol users, 44.7% (45.6% for men and 43.3% for women) reached target urate concentration. There was no significant increased risk of cardiovascular events for allopurinol users when compared with non-ULT users [adjusted hazard ratio (HR) 1.10, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.95–1.26] and the non-ULT group with urate >6 mg dl(−1) (adjusted HR 1.07, 95% CI 0.89–1.28). Within the allopurinol use cohort, cardiovascular event rates were 74.0 (95% CI 61.9–86.1) per 1000 person years for the 100 mg group, 69.7 (49.6–89.8) for the 200 mg group and 47.6 (38.4–56.9) for the ≥300 mg group. Compared with low-dose (100 mg) users, high-dose (≥300 mg) users had significant reductions in the risk of cardiovascular events (adjusted HR 0.69, 95% CI 0.50–0.94) and mortality (adjusted HR 0.75, 95% CI 0.59–0.94). CONCLUSIONS: Less than 50% of patients taking allopurinol reached target urate concentration. Higher doses of allopurinol were associated with better control of urate and lower risks of both cardiovascular events and mortality.