Major Study Finds Less Risk with Celebrex

Increases in Heart Risk with Vioxx but not Celebrex

A major study done at Canada's McGill University in Montreal has concluded that patients taking Vioxx were at incresed risk of heart attack and stroke. The study included 113,927 older residents of Quebec and found incidence of heart attacks increased 21 percent among those who took low doses of Vioxx and by 73 percent in those who took high doses.

"This is consistent with what most of the other studies have found," said study author Dr. James A. Brophy, an associate professor of medicine at McGill. "But it included many more cases than other studies, so we were able to have more precision. And other studies have not demonstrated dose-dependency."

Increased Risk Not Found with Celebrex
Another interesting conclusion from this study is that no similar increase in risk was found for Celebrex. Celebrex, like the recalled Vioxx is a member of the cox-2 inhibitor family of drugs.

"The importance of the new study is that it separates Vioxx from other cox-2 inhibitors," said Dr. Todd Schlifstein, an assistant professor of rehabilitation medicine at New York University School of Medicine. He called it "an impressive study because of its vast size and the number of years over which it was done."

Study results appear in the Feb. 1 online edition of the Annals of Internal Medicine.
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