To the Editor: The Medical Progress report on hyperuricemia and gout by Boss and Seegmiller in the June 28 issue is an excellent review overall, but it fails to discuss the comprehensive management of intercritical gout. Since Cohen reported on prophylactic colchicine in 1936, daily doses have been used effectively to prevent acute attacks in many patients.1 In 1961, a generation later, Yü and Gutman reported that only 6 per cent of 208 patients had an unsatisfactory response to periodic colchicine (and a uricosuric agent) over a mean period of 5.4 years.2 Most recently Wyngaarden and Kelley3 noted that “a. © 1979, Massachusetts Medical Society. All rights reserved.
