A comparison of gout in men and women. A 10-year experience.

The clinical features of gout in men and women are compared in a retrospective study of hospital patients and outpatients attending an arthritis clinic. Men had a readily recognized pattern of disease in terms of age of onset, duration of disease, and tophaceous gout. Recurrent mono-arthritis of the big toe metatarsophalangeal joint culminating in tophaceous polyarticular gout after many years was a stereotyped pattern. In women, polyarticular/tophaceous disease was often the first manifestation of gout, and a preceding recurrent mono-arthritis was found in joints other than the big toe. The duration of disease before tophi appeared was shorter. The use of diuretics was commonplace, and associated disease such as hypertension or chronic renal failure is frequent in women.