A new US study has given some reassurance to arthritis sufferers who want pain relief but are worried about side effects.
The study has found that Celebrex, a drug similar to ones withdrawn 12 years ago for safety reasons, is no riskier for the heart than some other prescription pain killers that are much tougher on the stomach.
"We do not want patients to suffer with pain and we need to know what is safe to give them," says Dr Steven Nissen, the Cleveland Clinic's heart chief, who led the study.
Fear that Celebrex would be worse than alternatives proved unfounded, and "on almost every endpoint it actually comes out the best."
Some other doctors were less confident, partly because follow-up information was missing on one-fourth of the participants, and many others stopped taking their assigned drug. Still, several independent experts said the main results are believable.
"I find this reassuring," said Dr Brian Strom, a drug safety expert and chancellor at Rutgers University in Newark. No new side effects emerged and Celebrex "seemed safer that way."
The study's findings were discussed on Sunday at an American Heart Association conference and published by the New England Journal of Medicine.
