Colchicine in acute gout

Abstract

Introduction We describe three histories of patients with gout who were treated with doses of colchicine as advised by the British National Formulary(BNF)–that is, 1 mg initially followed by 500 μg every 2-3 hours until relief of pain is obtained or vomiting or diarrhoea occurs or until a total dose of 6 mg has been reached; the course should not be repeated within three days.1 All three patients developed nausea or diarrhoea with this regimen. We consider that an alternative low dose schedule should be used to avoid such adverse events. Acknowledgments Contributors: PM and IM were involved in managing the patients and thought it worth while promoting the use of lower doses of colchicine. GV wrote the case histories and did the staff survey. All authors wrote the article. IM is guarantor.