COX-2 inhibitors contribute to fewer ulcer hospitalizations

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Rheumawire

June 2, 2004

COX-2 inhibitors contribute to fewer ulcer hospitalizations

New Orleans, LA - The introduction of the COX-2 inhibitors in the US has

contributed to fewer hospitalizations there for complicated ulcer

disease, new research shows.

Dr Gurkirpal Singh (Stanford University School of Medicine, CA)

presented the findings, taken from the largest inpatient care database

in the US, at the recent Digestive Disease Week 2004 meeting. He told

rheumawire that he would also present the same results at the EULAR

rheumatology meeting in Berlin next week.

" While hospitalizations for gastrointestinal complications have been

decreasing steadily since the introduction of proton pump inhibitors,

there have been 2 recent, sharp downturns, " he says.

The first came in 1995, following the 1994 National Institutes of Health

consensus conference on the eradication of Helicobacter pylori, he

explained. The second occurred in 1999, just after introduction of the

COX-2 inhibitors celecoxib (Celebrex®, Pfizer) and rofecoxib (Vioxx®,

Merck).

" These findings suggest that the introduction of COX-2-specific

inhibitors has had a major impact in preventing potentially serious and

costly ulcer-related complications, " he notes.

Singh and his colleagues used data from the Nationwide Inpatient Sample

(NIS), a stratified random sample of all US community hospitals, to

identify trends due to complicated stomach and duodenal ulcers over a

period of 14 years.

The total number of complicated stomach, duodenal, or peptic-ulcer

disease hospitalizations per year declined from 166 725 in 1988 to 139

597 in 2001. The analysis revealed 2 sharp falls: the first, of 11%, in

1995, and the second, of 8%, in 1999, which coincided with the

introduction of the COX-2 inhibitors.

" The data show that while all-cause hospitalization in the US increased

over the past decadeprobably as a result of the aging of the

populationthe total number of complicated gastric or stomach ulcers,

duodenal ulcers, or peptic-ulcer disease hospitalizations per year

actually declined, " Singh says.

Nainggolan

Source

Singh S, Mithal A, Triadafilopoulos G. Presentation: Age-adjusted

hospitalization rates for complicated gastric and duodenal ulcers in the

US: have COX-2 specific inhibitors and ppis made any difference?. New

Orleans, LA: American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases,

American Gastroenterological Association, American Society for

Gastrointestinal Surgery, and Society for Surgery of the Alimentary

Tract: Digestive Disease Week 2004; May 15-20, 2004:Abstract 106923.

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