Letter

Colchicine in acute gouty arthritis: the optimum dose?

George I Varughese¹ and Abraham I Varghese²

¹  University Hospital of North Staffordshire, Stoke-on-Trent ST4 8HZ, UK

²  Northampton General Hospital, Northampton NN1 5BD, UK

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Arthritis Research & Therapy 2006, 8:405doi:10.1186/ar2039

Published:	19 September 2006

See related review by Cronstein and Terkeltaub, http://arthritis-research.com/content/8/S1/S3

First paragraph (this article has no abstract)

We applaud Cronstein and Terkeltaub [1] on their comprehensive review of the inflammatory process of gout and its treatment. Although they allude to the fact that colchicine probably has the smallest therapeutic window of any drug used to treat acute gouty arthritis, they have suggested "In treating acute gouty arthritis colchicine is typically administered as an oral 0.6 mg dose, followed by 0.6 mg at hourly intervals until gastrointestinal side effects (e.g. nausea, vomiting, or diarrhea) occur or a maximum total of six to eight doses has been administered" (see also the recommended dosage in Table 1 in [1]).