Investigators have found that a price spike for the anti-inflammatory agent colchicine in 2010 was correlated with a decline in the medication’s usage and an increase in emergency visits for patients with gout, according to a report from Medscape summarizing recent research. In a retrospective study published this week by Ly et al in JAMA Internal Medicine, investigators included over 2.7 million patient-year observations and found that after the price of colchicine rose from $11.25 to $190.49 per prescription—amounting to an out-of-pocket cost increase of $22.05 per prescription—medication usage dropped by 27%. As a result of the inaccessibility of colchicine, patients with gout may have turned to more affordable alternatives such as allopurinol and oral corticosteroids, despite these treatments demonstrating lower levels of efficacy. Further, from 2010 to 2019, the investigators observed a 39.8% increase in visits to the emergency department. The investigators concluded that without competition from other drug manufacturers, the manufacturers of colchicine were able to elevate the price of the drug—which likely contributed to worse disease management in patients with gout.