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Researchers from England and Sweden found that newly diagnosed tachyarrhythmia is associated with recent gout flares, as published in The Lancet Primary Care. In the English cohort, 20,157 patients with incident tachyarrhythmia were compared with 76,835 matched controls. In the Swedish cohort, 1,995 cases were compared with 6,086 controls. In both populations, a gout flare within the previous 30 days was associated with significantly greater odds of a new tachyarrhythmia diagnosis, most commonly atrial fibrillation or flutter, with adjusted odds ratios of 1.41 in England and 1.71 in Sweden. No significant association was seen for flares occurring 31–120 days earlier. Further analysis of patient baseline periods compared to times after gout flares produced similar findings, showing increased tachyarrhythmia incidence during the 0–30 days after a flare (incidence rate ratio 1.44 in England and 4.15 in Sweden) and persisting through 60 days.
Watch for new presentations: The authors conclude that gout flares are linked to a transient increase in tachyarrhythmia risk, particularly during the first month and potentially up to 2 months after a flare. As many as 89% of arrhythmia events involved atrial fibrillation or flutter. View an electrocardiogram of a woman diagnosed with atrial fibrillation in this recent JUCM Clinical Image Challenge: 84-Year-Old With Palpitations