Serum uric acid

Method

Serum or plasma uric acid concentration by clinical uricase enzymatic assay.

The method is part of the endpoint identity. Studies measuring the same quantity by a different method are held as separate endpoints.

Notes

CAT:outcome/serum-creatinine and blood urea nitrogen are the near-misses: all three are nitrogenous serum solutes cleared renally, all are printed on the same 'renal panel', all improve by falling. But urate is a purine catabolite under separate tubular-transport control and moves with diet, fructose, alcohol and diuretics independently of glomerular filtration, so a urate change is not a filtration finding. Note the cross-node consequence: urate dominates the total antioxidant capacity assay in human serum, so an intervention that raises urate raises measured TAC — a harmful movement here reading as a beneficial movement there. Unit trap: mg/dL times 59.48 gives micromol/L.