Treat to target in gout

Abstract

The treat-to-target (T2T) approach has been successfully implemented in a number of diseases. T2T has been proposed for rheumatic diseases such as RA, spondyloarthritis, lupus, and recently for gout. The level of evidence for such approaches differs from one condition to the other (moderate to high for hyperlipidaemia, for example). Practice is based on the best available evidence at any time, and in absence of good evidence for T2T in gout, some suggest a conservative only-treat-symptoms approach. Evidence suggests that not treating gout to target in the long term is overall associated with worsening outcomes, such as flares, tophi and structural damage, which is associated to loss of quality of life and mortality. Different targets have been proposed for hyperuricaemia in gout; lower than 6 mg/dl (0.36 mmol/l) for all patients, at least < 5 mg/dl (0.30 mmol/l) for patients with severe-polyarticular or tophaceous-gout.