Category Archives: NSAIDS

Voltaren® Arthritis Pain Provided Meaningful Pain Relief in Knee Osteoarthritis

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PainRelief.com Interview with:

Jeffrey Fudin, B.S., Pharm.D., FCCP, FASHP
Diplomate, American Academy of Pain Management
Section Editor, Pain Medicine

Dr. Fudin

PainRelief.com:  What is the background for this study?

Response: Osteoarthritis (OA) affects over 14% of the United States population. As such it is important to establish effective, well-tolerated, and safe medication options. Topical nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) act locally and are strongly recommended for patients with knee osteoarthritis as a first line option prior to chronic oral NSAID use in an effort to minimize systemic exposure, as oral products, result in tremendously higher blood levels compared to their topical counterpart.

PainRelief.com: What are the main findings?

Response: Diclofenac sodium gel 1% (DSG 1%), a topical NSAID, provided better pain relief than non-drug vehicle alone for patients with knee osteoarthritis in 3 clinical trials. A post-hoc meta-analysis of these trials was conducted to determine the percentage of patients achieving a minimal clinically important improvement (MCII) in pain and other symptoms of OA to gain insight into the real world clinical impact of topical diclofenac for patients. The MCII is defined as the smallest improvement in symptoms viewed as clinically meaningful for patients. In short, the MCII represents an improvement of relevance in a clinical trial and the minimal meaningful change at an individual level.

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Pain Relief from NSAIDS and COVID-19 Outcomes

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PainRelief.com Interview with:
Anton Pottegård DMSc PhD
Professor (MScPharm, PhD, DMSc)
Clinical Pharmacology and Pharmacy, Department of Public Health
University of Southern Denmark
Head of Research, Hospital Pharmacy Funen
Odense University Hospital

PainRelief.com:  What is the background for this study?

Response: Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, concerns were raised that use of the common painkiller ibuprofen – a so-called NSAID – to treat symptoms of COVID-19 might lead to more severe disease. This started with tweets from the French health minister and culminated with a warning issued by the WHO. This warning was later retracted, but naturally patients and physicians were concerned regarding the safety of ibuprofen. We therefore established a nationwide Danish collaboration between researchers and regulators and established a prospective cohort of all Danish patients that contracted COVID-19, including data on what prescription medicines they used. We used these data to evaluate whether users of ibuprofen or other NSAIDs on average had a more severe course of COVID-19 than those not using these drugs.

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Animal Study Finds Ibuprofen for Pain Relief Can Cause Liver Damage

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PainRelief.com Interview with:
Aldrin V. Gomes, Ph.D., FAHA
Professor and Vice-Chair for Teaching,
Department of Neurobiology, Physiology, and Behavior
University of California, Davis
Davis, CA 95616

Dr. Gomes

PainRelief.com:  What is the background for this study?

Response: While many over the counter non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) now include a warning about potential cardiovascular disease, warnings about liver injury are hardly mentioned. This is because most NSAIDs including ibuprofen is considered to have very little potential to cause liver toxicity.

However, a 2018 publication (doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cgh.2017.07.037) showed a relatively high prevalence of ibuprofen -induced liver injury in Spanish and Latin-American DILI (Drug induced liver injury) registries. As such, we were interested in determining what effects, if any, ibuprofen had on mice liver.

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All Over-the-Counter Pain Relief Medications Contain Both Risks and Benefits

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PainRelief.com Interview with:

Charles H. Hennekens, M.D., Dr.P.H, FACPM, FACC
Sir Richard Doll Professor and Senior Academic Advisor
Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine
Florida Atlantic University

PainRelief.com:  What is the background for this study?  What are the main findings?

Response: About 29 million Americans use over-the-counter nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) to treat pain. Every year in the United States (US),  NSAID use is attributed to  approximately 100,000 hospitalizations and 17,000 deaths. In addition, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently strengthened its warning about risks of non-aspirin NSAIDs on heart attacks and strokes. 

While each over the counter and prescription pain reliever  has benefits and risks, deciding which to use is complicated for healthcare providers and their patients.

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Fixed-Dose Combination Acetaminophen/Ibuprofen for Postoperative Dental Pain

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PainRelief.com Interview with:

Prof Chris Frampton PhD Department of Medicine University of Otago Christchurch, New Zealand

Prof. Frampton

Prof Chris Frampton PhD
Department of Medicine
University of Otago
Christchurch, New Zealand

PainRelief.com: What is the background for this study?

Response: Acute pain is a significant burden to the individual and to society. In light of the ongoing opioid crisis, there is a need for effective nonopioid pain medications that provide improved analgesia over common analgesics, without compromising tolerability. Multimodal analgesia combines multiple drugs with different mechanisms of action to improve pain relief while limiting side effects. Fixed-dose combination tablets containing acetaminophen and ibuprofen are already available in many countries; however, the therapeutic advantages of such products are not available to patients in the United States. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has restricted the dose of acetaminophen in prescription drugs to 325 mg per tablet, therefore an existing product containing acetaminophen 500 mg + ibuprofen 150 mg per tablet (two tablets per dose) has been downscaled to comply with FDA restrictions (acetaminophen 325 mg + ibuprofen 97.5 mg, three tablets per dose). The goal of this study was to determine the efficacy of the new fixed-dose combination of acetaminophen 975 mg and ibuprofen 292.5 mg (FDC 975/292.5) relative to acetaminophen or ibuprofen monotherapy, or placebo following the surgical removal of at least two impacted third molars.

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