Source: DGNews  |  Posted 8 years ago

By Charlene Laino

BALTIMORE, MD -- October 27, 2003 -- Patients in the United States who take celecoxib file significantly fewer medical claims for upper-gastrointestinal symptoms than do users of ibuprofen and naproxen, a retrospective study suggests.

Jay Goldstein, MD, Professor of Medicine, University of Illinois, Chicago United States, presented the findings here on October 13th at the 68th Annual Scientific Meeting of the American College of Gastroenterology.

The study of nearly 200,000 claims showed that, compared with celecoxib, 48% and 40% more claims related to upper-gastrointestinal symptoms were filed for ibuprofen and naproxen respectively, Dr. Goldstein reported.

This retrospective cohort study was conducted using the LifeLink insurance-claims database, which represents about 1.8 million employees, dependents and retirees in the United States. Patients who had been continuously enrolled in the database for 12 months were included in the study if they started taking 1 of the study drugs between June 1999 and June 2001. The final cohort consisted of 68,939 patients taking celecoxib, 71,456 patients taking ibuprofen and 50,014 taking naproxen.

At baseline, celecoxib users were significantly older, more likely to have a history of upper-gastrointestinal, cardiovascular and renal-related symptoms, and used more health-care resources in the prior year than nonspecific NSAID users.

After adjusting for confounders, celecoxib users filed 0.42 claims for upper-gastrointestinal-tract symptoms per 1,000 patient days, compared with 0.60 and 0.58 per 1,000 patient-days for ibuprofen and naproxen, respectively. The claims covered dyspepsia, abdominal pain and nausea/vomiting.

Younger age, female gender, comorbid conditions, and higher health-care expenditures prior to the painkiller prescription were independent predictors of subsequent medical claims, Dr. Goldstein said.

"Previous controlled trials have demonstrated that cyclo-oxygenase-2 specific inhibitors have an improved tolerability profile as compared with traditional nonsteroidals," Dr. Goldstein said. "These data extend those findings to a real-world clinical setting."

This study was funded in part by Pfizer/Pharmacia.

[Study Title: Comparison of Upper Gastrointestinal Symptoms Between Users of Celecoxib, Ibuprofen, and Naproxen in a U.S. Insured Population. Abstract 3]