In Treating Acute Gout Flares, Alternative Treatment May Be Effective

Anakinra is a viable alternative to the common therapeutic options of colchicine, naproxen, or prednisone for the treatment of acute gout flares, according to a new study.

To determine anakinra’s efficacy, the researchers randomly assigned 88 participants with a crystal-proven acute gout flare to either anakinra (43 participants) or treatment as usual with either colchicine, naproxen, or prednisone (45 participants).

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The researchers measured the change in pain between baseline and the averaged pain score on days 2–4 measured on a five-point rating scale.

The non-inferiority of anakinra was seen as established if the upper bound of the 95% confidence interval of the numeric difference in changed pain scores between treatment groups did not exceed the non-inferiority limit of 0.4 in favor of usual treatment.

Overall, anakinra was proven to be non-inferior to usual treatment in both the per-protocol and intention-to-treat populations.

There were no unexpected or serious adverse events in either group.

Further, participants in both groups experienced similar significant reductions in their gout symptoms.

—Colleen Murphy

Reference:

Janssen CA, Oude Voshaar MAH, Vonkeman HE, et al. Anakinra for the treatment of acute gout flares: a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, active-comparator, non-inferiority trial [published online January 2, 2019]. Rheumatology (Oxford). https://doi.org/10.1093/rheumatology/key402.