Overview
This study at IRCCS Galeazzi - Sant'Ambrogio Hospital involves patients with gout, CPPD, and osteoarthritis as a control group. Patients will receive routine care with regular clinical, laboratory, and imaging assessments every six months, alongside urgent visits as needed. The study aims to understand crystal deposits in joints and blood vessels and monitor their progression over time, assessing how these deposits respond to standard treatments and if they are associated with cardiovascular complications. Data will be collected from medical records over a follow-up period of up to 10 years, offering long-term insights into disease impact and treatment effectiveness.
Description
This is a monocentric observational longitudinal study in which patients diagnosed with gout or CPPD and disease-controls with OA will be consecutively recruited from the outpatient clinics of the Rheumatology and Orthopaedic Hip Departments of the IRCCS Galeazzi - Sant'Ambrogio Hospital.
The investigators will enroll consecutive patients with CPPD and gout and disease-controls with OA fulfilling the inclusion and exclusion criteria, from the outpatient clinics of the Rheumatology Department and Orthopaedic Hip Department of the IRCCS Galeazzi - Sant'Ambrogio Hospital, who will be seen for routine or urgent gout/CPPD/OA care following local scheduling processes, without applying any further selection criteria. All patients, in line with clinical routine practice, will undergo a standard clinical, laboratory and imaging assessment, both at baseline and during scheduled follow-up visits (every 6 months) and urgent follow-up visits, tailored to each patient's needs. The study comprises two phases. The first, aims to evaluate the extent of crystal deposition in joints and in blood vessels in patients with CPPD and gout. The second, focuses on monitoring the extension of crystals deposits, their associations with conventional therapies, and evaluating the development of cardiovascular complications in patients with CPPD and gout in comparison to disease-controls with OA. The data for the study will be retrieved from the medical records of the patients and recorded into an appositely created electronic case report form (CRF). The enrollment period will last 3 years (starting from the time of approval of the study), and the follow up period will last 10 years.
Eligibility
The inclusion criteria for CPPD patients are:
- Patients diagnosed with CPPD disease according to the ACR/EULAR 2023 classification criteria.
- Patients with evidence of asymptomatic CPPD on US or X-rays (not meeting the classification criteria) according to validated imaging definitions.
- Aged older than 18 years.
- Able to provide informed consent, according to requirements of local IRB/ethics committee.
The inclusion criteria for gout patients are:
- Patients diagnosed with gout according to the ACR/EULAR 2015 classification criteria.
- Aged older than 18 years.
- Able to provide informed consent, according to requirements of local IRB/ethics committee.
The inclusion criteria for disease controls are:
- A diagnosis of OA according to ACR classification criteria
- No evidence of uric acid or calcium pyrophosphate deposits on US
- Uric acid \< 6 mg/dL
- Aged older than 18 years.
- Able to provide informed consent, according to requirements of local IRB/ethics committee
The exclusion criteria for gout/CPPD patients are:
- Known history of other inflammatory arthropathies
- Unable to provide informed consent, according to requirements of local IRB/ethics committee.
The exclusion criteria for disease controls are:
- Known history of other inflammatory arthropathies
- Unable to provide informed consent, according to requirements of local IRB/ethics committee.
