According to the
British National Formulary, allopurinol can be given up to
a dosage of 900 mg/day in the treatment of gout in patients
with normal renal function although doses of 100 to 300
mg/day are most commonly prescribed in clinical practice.
Study limitations. This is a single-center study with a
relatively small number of patients. It is almost inevitable
with so many demographic parameters that a few will by
chance be different at baseline, although few differences
were statistically significant. Additionally, the patients recruited
in this study were predominantly men and the
number of diabetic patients was low. Finally, although
significant, the effect of allopurinol on LVM is modest,
although it is similar in percentage terms to what was seen
between the 2 treatments in the echo substudy of the LIFE
trial (7).