A new study gives some relief to arthritis patients who want pain relief but are worried about its side effect.The study of arthritis drugs found that Pfizer Inc.'s painkiller Celebrex posed no higher risk to a patient's heart than some other prescription pain pills that are much together on the stomach.

According to two different analyses on 24,000- patient study, patients assigned to take Celebrex suffered numerically fewer heart-related problem, heart attacks, and strokes than naproxen and ibuprofen.

Dr. Michael Lauer, a cardiologist at the National Institute of Health said it a very 'striking finding'

The drugs seemed miraculous when they were first introduced in 1999. But due to the allegation from Merck clinical trial that the drug increased the risk of heart diseases, and the company pulled it off the market in 2004, reported by The State.

The researchers during the trial 188 of the celecoxib patients (2.3 percent) died of heart disease or had a heart attack, compared with 201 patients taking naproxen and 218 patients taking ibuprofen. The patients taking ibuprofen had worsening kidney function, increased high blood pressure and had significantly more gastrointestinal bleeding and ulcers.

According to New York Times, there were 25 percent more total deaths with naproxen than celecoxib- 163 with naproxen compared with 132 with celecoxib. And the celecoxib was intended to avoid bleeding problems as well.

The other outcome of the study could not consider proof of harm, though they did warrant of further study, emphasized by Dr. Steven Nissen, who directed the study of Cleveland Clinic.

"Celecoxib is safer. If you need to be on it for more than a couple of months. I would think strongly about celecoxib", reported by Dr. Blaha

The study has some real weaknesses, said by Dr. Elliott M. Antman. He argued that minority of patients had documented heart disease who are most worrisome.Making it hard to interpret the real data.





Related