Pharmacoepidemiological Study on Suppression of Hyperuricemia by Losartan

Losartan is thought to stimulate uric acid excretion but there have been few studies on this effect in Japanese hypertension patients.The purpose of our study was to clarify that losartan decreases the incidence of hyperuricemia.To do this,at 5 hospitals,we investigated the incidence of hyperuricemia retrospectively in patients taking losartan for one year,and made a comparison with other antihypertensive drugs.At 2.9% (7/235)the incidence of hyperuricemia for the losartan group was lower than in the control group,in which it was 6.3% (189/2795).The risk factors for hyperuricemia were sex,age,serum uric acid prior to administration and diuretic use.Adjusted for these risk factors the hazard ratio (95% confidence interval) for losartan was 0.69 (0.27-1.72).Losartan was thus useful for hypertension patients in whom hyperuricemia was a risk factor,since its incidence was markedly lower as compared with other antihypertensive drugs.