The Effect of Pretreatment with Colchicine on the Inflammatory Response to Microcrystalline Urate

Abstract

Nearly a century ago the British physician A. B. Garrod (1) regarded acute gouty arthritis as an inflammatory reaction to sodium urate crystals. Most investigators during the past three decades have denied such a role to sodium urate, largely because injected solutions or suspensions of sodium urate failed to produce an inflammatory reaction and because there was no consistent correlation between the degree of hyperuricemia and the development of acute gout (2-4). We have recently presented evidence to support Garrod's original hypothesis. By subcutaneous or intra-articular injection of microcrystals of monosodium urate in gouty and nongouty human volunteers, we produced