The role of urate-lowering treatment on cardiovascular and renal disease: evidence from CARES, FAST, ALL-HEART, and FEATHER studies

Abstract

Hyperuricemia has long been known to cause gout, and has recently been correlated with cardiovascular disease, hypertension, and renal disease. In the last few years, several large clinical studies have confirmed that hyperuricemia is a significant and independent risk factor for hypertension, ischemic heart disease, and heart failure, after an extensive adjustment for almost all the possible confounding conditions. This article reviews published literature on the subject, and describes ongoing studies on the use of urate-lowering therapy for cardiovascular and renal diseases.

Keywords:

• Uric acid
• cardiovascular diseases
• renal disease

Transparency

Declaration of funding

This editorial was funded by Fondazione Menarini.

Declaration of financial/other relationships

RP declares speakers bureau from Teijin Pharma and Algorytm SAS. RP also declares consultancy/advisory fees from AstraZeneca, Boehringer Ingelheim, Eli Lilly, MSD, Novartis, and sigma-tau. Peer reviewers on this manuscript have received an honorarium from CMRO for their review work, but have no other relevant financial relationships to disclose.

Acknowledgments

Editorial assistance for this supplement was provided by Content Ed Net funded by Fondazione Menarini. The author thanks Thomas Macdonald for his speech at the Symposium “Uric Acid and cardiovascular disease: back to pathophysiology” held in Bologna, December 1–3, 2016, on which this article was based in part.