Patterns of urinary excretion of gold in patients with rheumatoid arthritis undergoing chrysotherapy.

Thirty patients receiving gold therapy for rheumatoid arthritis (RA) were studied for the urinary excretion of gold. Statistical analysis of all the urine specimens passed over a period of four days by each patient showed that a definite rhythm of gold excretion exists for each patient which is possibly related to water excretion but not to creatinine excretion. The study indicates possible reasons for the inability of earlier workers to relate gold excretion to the general body gold status of patients and suggests that as the study of 24 hour excretions of gold may be an insensitive marker of gold excretion, closer examination of individual patient rhythms of gold excretion could possibly provide a more useful method of analysis.