Headlines
As reported by The Hartford Courant, January 27, 2005.
Study: Vioxx Ups Pressure; Celebrex Doesn't
By William Hathaway
The blood pressure of arthritis patients rose significantly after they began taking the pain reliever Vioxx, but no such increase was noted in the case of the related drug Celebrex, a study by University of Connecticut Health Center showed.
The study, published Monday in the Archives of Internal Medicine, also found no significant increase in the blood pressure of patients taking naproxen, which is sold under the brand name Aleve.
However, two to four weeks after beginning any drug to treat arthritis, patients should have their blood pressure tested, Dr. William White, senior author of the study, recommended..
"It's a fairly insidious risk factor and you want to avoid it creeping up," said White, chief of the division of hypertension and clinical pharmacology at UConn.
Patients were randomly assigned to receive 200 mg of celecoxib, the generic name for Celebrex, or 25 mg of rofecoxib (Vioxx) once daily, or 500 mg of naproxen twice daily, for 12 weeks. Sixty-five centers from seven countries participated in the one-year trial. Patent evaluations were conducted at the start of the study with follow-ups at intervals of one, two, six and 12 weeks.
Some scientists have questioned the safety of the entire class of painkillers called Cox2-inhibitors, which include Vioxx and Celebrex. Vioxx was withdrawn from the market after studies showed a higher than expected risk of heart attacks and strokes among users. Similar problems were found among study participants who took high doses of Celebrex, which remains on the market.
"These drugs do not behave the same," White said.
The trial was conducted before Vioxx was withdrawn from the market.
White said that arthritis patients taking anti-inflammatory drugs, whether Cox-2 inhibitors or drugs such as aspirin or ibuprofen, should have their blood pressure checked regularly.