School of Medicine Publications and Presentations
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2-2025
Abstract
Background
Gout and pseudogout are inflammatory joint conditions, with gout being one of the most prevalent etiologies of chronic inflammatory arthritis in the United States. The patient population in the Rio Grande Valley (RGV) has a distinct demographic profile that warrants the exploration of various health conditions. The primary objective of this study was to expand the knowledge of orthopedics and determine if there were demographic disparities between gout and pseudogout in this community. We hypothesized that there would be demographic disparities between gout and pseudogout depending on age, sex, and ethnicity.
Methods
This was a retrospective chart review, and data was gathered from the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV) UTHealth electronic database from January 1, 2017, to January 1, 2024. We collected and analyzed medical charts of individuals who were diagnosed with gout or pseudogout using the International Classification of Diseases version 10 (ICD-10) diagnosis codes M10 for gout and M11.2 for pseudogout. Patients’ characteristics were described by gout status using frequency (n) and percentage (%) for categorical variables.
Results
Individuals in age groups 40-65 years and greater than or equal to 65 years compared to patients aged less than 40 years old had significantly higher odds of having gout versus no gout. Women compared to men had 88% lower odds of having gout compared to no gout (odds ratio {OR}=0.12; 95% confidence interval {CI}: 0.08, 0.17; p
Conclusion
Individuals of various demographics in the underserved RGV community, and possibly demographically similar communities, may be at increased risk for gout or pseudogout. This warrants further research on these conditions in this region to further improve the knowledge and possibly prevent the numerous effects of these conditions on an individual’s quality of life.
Recommended Citation
Martin, B. C., Cisneros, F., Vatcheva, K., & Sander, M. D. (2025). Gout Versus Pseudogout in the Medically Underserved Rio Grande Valley. Cureus, 17(2), e79457. https://doi.org/10.7759/cureus.79457
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Publication Title
Cureus
DOI
10.7759/cureus.79457
Academic Level
medical student
Mentor/PI Department
Medical Education
Comments
Copyright © 2025, Martin et al.
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License CC-BY 4.0., which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.