RT Journal Article SR Electronic T1 Rising Incidence of Acute Hospital Admissions due to Gout JF The Journal of Rheumatology JO J Rheumatol FD The Journal of Rheumatology SP jrheum.190257 DO 10.3899/jrheum.190257 A1 Mark D. Russell A1 Mark Yates A1 Katie Bechman A1 Andrew I. Rutherford A1 Sujith Subesinghe A1 Peter Lanyon A1 James B. Galloway YR 2019 UL http://www.jrheum.org/content/early/2020/02/10/jrheum.190257.abstract AB Objective To describe trends in acute hospital admissions due to gout in England, with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) as a comparator, alongside prescribing trends for common gout medications. Methods An ecological study was performed using UK National Health Service (NHS) Digital Hospital Episode Statistics data to calculate the incidence of unplanned admissions with primary diagnoses of gout or RA in adults in England between April 2006 and March 2017. NHS Digital Community Prescription data for allopurinol, febuxostat, and colchicine were considered over a similar period. Results The incidence of unplanned gout admissions increased by 58.4% over the study period, from 7.9 admissions per 100,000 population in 2006/07 to 12.5 admissions per 100,000 population in 2016/17 (p < 0.0001). Gout admissions increased as a proportion of all hospital admissions, and accounted for 349,768 bed-days cumulatively. Unplanned RA admissions halved over the study period, from 8.6 admissions per 100,000 population in 2006/07 to 4.3 admissions per 100,000 population in 2016/17 (p < 0.0001). Community prescriptions dispensed for allopurinol and colchicine have increased by 71.4% and 165.6%, respectively, since 2006 (p < 0.0001). Febuxostat prescriptions have increased 20-fold since 2010 (p < 0.0001), when prescription data became available. Conclusion Acute gout admissions in England increased between 2006 and 2017, accompanied by increasing prescription of gout therapies. Acute admissions due to RA halved over the same time period. These data call for aggressive target-driven therapy for this highly treatable disease.