OBJECTIVES: Gout patients in the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) are often
difficult to manage (DTM) with multiple co-morbidities (diabetes, hypertension, renal
disease) that are associated with cardiovascular thrombotic events (CVTE) and other
cardiac events (OCE). Our objectives were to describe rates of CVTE and OCE among
patients with gout and to determine if increased CVTE or OCE occurred in patients
with DTM gout. METHODS: We used VA national databases to select all patients
with gout diagnoses (ICD-9