medwireNews: Allopurinol and benzbromarone have comparable cardiovascular (CV) risk profiles in patients with gout, suggests research presented in a poster at the EULAR 2021 Virtual Congress.
CV risk was assessed in 257,097 patients with gout taking allopurinol and 7868 taking benzbromarone. The patients had an average age of 54 years and 86% were men.
At baseline, patients taking benzbromarone had more CV comorbidities than those taking allopurinol but there was no significant difference between the two groups for the primary composite outcome of coronary revascularization or hospitalization for myocardial infarction, ischemic stroke or transient ischemic attack, for any of the individual components separately, or for hospitalization for heart failure.
“The results did not change even when 1:3 propensity score matching was performed for baseline characteristics,” commented Yeonghee Eun (Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine, Seoul, Republic of South Korea).
The researchers also conducted a subanalysis of patients at high risk for CV disease but again there was no significant difference between the two groups for the composite outcome or its individual components, or for hospitalization for heart failure.
However, when the team limited the analysis to patients taking higher doses of the drugs – allopurinol 200 mg and above and benzbromarone 50 mg and above – the risk for coronary revascularization was significantly increased in patients taking benzbromarone, at a hazard ratio of 1.58. But there was still no increased risk for the primary composite outcome or the other individual components.
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