[Uric acid, cardiovascular events and renal dysfunction: a circumstantial connection?]

The relationship between asymptomatic hyperuricemia, cardiovascular events and renal dysfunction was studied (affirmed or challenged) long time ago. To investigate this relationship we conducted this study.

We analyzed 163 patients consecutively admitted in the Intensive Cardiac Care Unit of the 1st Cardiology Clinic, County Hospital "St. Spiridon" Iasi. The cut-off value of serum uric acid was defined as 7 mg%. There were recorded anthropometric, anamnesis, clinical and paraclinical data.

We compared the normal uricemia group (108 patients) with the hyperuricemia group (55 patients). The serum uric acid value was 5.22 +/- 1.16 mg% in the normouricemia group and 8.58 +/- 1.86 mg% in the hyperuricemia group. The statistically significant differences between the two groups relate to sex, smoking as cardiovascular risk factor, diastolic blood pressure and ejection fraction (lower in the hyperuricemia group were the dilated cardiomyopathy prevail). If the patients are grouped according to creatinine clearance less than or greater than 60 ml/min we found statistically significant differences between the two groups in terms of serum uric acid value (p < 0.001), age (p < 0.001), renal dysfunction and dyslipidaemia (p 0.001).

The analysis performed doesn't demonstrate the role of uric acid as independent risk factor in a group that includes patients with different heart diseases (dilated cardiomyopathy, ischemic heart disease or hypertension).