Gout and Pseudogout Differential Diagnoses
- Author: Bruce M Rothschild, MD; Chief Editor: Herbert S Diamond, MD more...
Diagnostic Considerations
The history and physical examination alone cannot reliably determine the cause of new-onset acute monoarticular arthritis. Septic arthritis, gout, and pseudogout can present in very similar ways.
Certain clinical presentations are so characteristic of gout that attempts have been made to accurately diagnose or exclude gout without joint aspiration. Janssens et al[66] developed a diagnostic rule for this purpose, which included the following:
- Male sex
- Previous arthritis attack
- Onset within 1 day
- Joint redness
- First metatarsophalangeal joint involvement
- Hypertension or one or more cardiovascular diseases
- A serum uric acid level of more than 5.88 mg/dL
In a study of this rule in 328 patients, the positive predictive value of gout diagnosis by family physicians was 0.64; the negative predictive value was 0.87.[66]
Nevertheless, the criterion standard for the diagnosis of gout remains (1) the demonstration of intracellular monosodium urate crystals and (2) the exclusion of infection or other crystal types in the synovial fluid from the inflamed joint. Patients who present with acute inflammatory arthritis need to undergo arthrocentesis to exclude septic arthritis, even if their serum uric acid level is elevated. Nongonococcal infectious arthritis carries a 10% fatality rate and therefore must be excluded.
Other problems to be considered in the differential diagnosis of gout and pseudogout include:
- Acute sarcoidosis (rare)
- Amyloidosis
- Calcific periarthritis
- Congenital fructose intolerance
- Conjunctival calcinosis
- Hypoxanthine-guanine phosphoribosyltransferase deficiency (Lesch-Nyhan syndrome)
- Malignant soft tissue tumors
- Milk-alkali syndrome
- Multicentric reticulohistiocytosis
- Pigmented villonodular synovitis
- Phosphoribosylpyrophosphate synthetase superactivity
- Psoriatic arthropathy
- Reactive arthritis (no longer called Reiter syndrome, as Reiter was a war criminal)
- Renal osteodystrophy
- Spondyloarthropathy
- Rheumatoid arthritis
- Trauma
- Type IIA hyperlipoproteinemia
Differential Diagnoses
- Arthritis as a Manifestation of Systemic Disease
- Bursitis
- Cellulitis
- Chondrocalcinosis
- Hyperparathyroidism
- Nephrolithiasis
- Paronychia
- Rheumatoid Arthritis
- Septic Arthritis
- Tenosynovitis
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