NSAID study
This article was originally published in The Tan Sheet
Executive Summary
Arthritic patients who took NSAIDs for more than three months had considerably more intestinal damage than patients taking acetaminophen or nothing for their pain, researcher David Graham tells attendees at Digestive Disease Week in Orlando, Fla. May 17-22. Investigators studied pictures taken with video capsule endoscopy and looked for "definite erosions as the critical variable to predict NSAID-induced damage." Seventy-one percent of high-dose ibuprofen, naproxen and indomethacin users had damage compared to 10% of non-users. "Severe injury" was seen in 25% of NSAID users compared to zero in the non-user group, researchers say. Study investigators hope their results "open the way to studies comparing NSAID[s], identifying methods to prevent this damage" and attempting to equate damage with symptoms...