Results of the content analysis of 539 gout-related and hyperuricaemia-related articles: disease element clusters identified as potentially meaningful disease states of gout and characteristics of their labels
| Disease states represented by disease element clusters | Number of articles labelling disease state (% of total articles) | Number of unique labels identified | Most frequently used labels (% of articles referencing disease state) | |
| Pre-clinical states | Hyperuricaemia* without clinical disease elements† of gout | 79 (14.5%) | 1 | Asymptomatic hyperuricaemia* (100%) |
| Imaging evidence of MSU crystal deposition without clinical disease elements† of gout | 32 (5.9%) | 8 | Asymptomatic MSU crystal deposition (43.8%) | |
| Hyperuricaemia* with imaging evidence of MSU crystal deposition and without clinical disease elements† of gout | 32 (5.9%) | 4 | Asymptomatic hyperuricaemia* with MSU‡ crystal deposition (90.6%) | |
| Clinical states | Presence of MSU crystals with
clinical disease elements† of gout | 61 (11.3%) | 14 | Symptomatic gout (50.8%) |
| Presence of MSU crystals with any of the following: frequent recurrent gout flares, chronic gouty arthritis, subcutaneous tophi or imaging disease elements§ of gout | 72 (13.4%) | 6 | Severe gout (81.9%) | |
| Presence of MSU crystals with at least one subcutaneous tophus | 106 (19.7%) | 3 | Tophaceous gout (81.1%) | |
| Chronic gouty arthritis with at least one subcutaneous tophus | 10 (1.9%) | 4 | Chronic tophaceous gouty arthropathy (40.0%) | |
| Presence of MSU crystals with any of the following: gout flare, chronic gouty arthritis and without subcutaneous tophi | 10 (1.9%) | 3 | Non-tophaceous gout (80%) | |
| Presence of MSU crystals with clinical disease elements† of gout and with at least one gouty bone erosion | 6 (1.1%) | 1 | Erosive gout (100%) | |
| Disease course states | The first episode of gout flare without preceding intercritical gout | 73 (13.5%) | 5 | Incident gout (75.3%) |
| More than one episode of gout flare with intercritical gout | 79 (14.7%) | 8 | Recurrent gout flares (94.9%) | |
| Presence of MSU crystals with clinical disease elements† of gout and early in the course of disease natural history | 19 (3.5%) | 4 | Early gout (68.4%) | |
| Presence of MSU crystals with clinical disease elements† of gout and late in the course of disease natural history | 9 (1.7%) | 2 | Long-standing gout (66.7%) | |
*In British English, hyperuricaemia.
†Clinical disease elements: gout flare, intercritical gout, chronic gouty arthritis, subcutaneous tophus.
‡Imaging disease elements: imaging evidence of MSU crystal deposition, gouty bone erosion.
MSU, monosodium urate.