MONDAY, Sept. 17 (HealthDay News) -- Patients taking non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) may have a lower risk of gastropathy when they are co-prescribed a proton pump inhibitor, according to study findings published in the September issue of Gastroenterology.
Wayne A. Ray, Ph.D., of Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville, Tenn., and colleagues analyzed 1996-2004 Medicaid data on 234,010 and 48,710 new episodes of NSAID and coxib use, respectively, and 1,223 peptic ulcer hospitalizations.
The researchers found that NSAID users with no gastroprotective co-therapy had a 2.76 times higher risk of peptic ulcer hospitalization than patients who used neither NSAIDs nor coxibs. They also found that concurrent use of NSAIDs and proton pump inhibitors was associated with a 54 percent reduced risk, which was comparable to the 50 percent reduced risk associated with concurrent use of coxibs and proton pump inhibitors.
"Our findings strongly support concurrent use of a proton pump inhibitor for NSAID-treated patients with high risk of upper gastrointestinal disease," the authors conclude. "They underscore the need for future clinical trials of coxibs to directly compare these agents to an NSAID with a proton pump inhibitor. Finally, further investigation is urgently needed of the benefits of adding a proton pump inhibitor to celecoxib and other coxibs, because our findings suggest this strategy provided the best gastroprotection and was effective for patients taking low-dose aspirin."
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