Development and use of a gastropathy index for ranking the safety of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs in the elderly.
This study, conducted at the Royal Devon & Exeter Hospital, Department of Geriatric Medicine, was carried out using 2987 sets of admission data. The number of patients taking non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs was identified together with a suite of clinical factors used to indicate the presence of gastrointestinal pathology. From this a gastropathy index was developed to establish a rank order for the individual drugs. Ketoprofen, piroxicam and fenbufen were all significantly associated with factors suggestive of gastropathy, whereas indomethacin, diclofenac and ibuprofen appeared relatively free of such association. Naproxen, azapropazone and mefenamic acid ranked in an intermediate category. This noninvasive analysis of routinely acquired data provides a potentially useful discriminator between individual non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs for this age group.
Royal Devon & Exeter Hospital, U.K.
V F
VF
Trewin
C J
CJ
Lawrence
S A
SA
Rae
G B
GB
Veitch
D000368:Aged; D000894:Anti-Inflammatory Agents, Non-Steroidal / Q000009:adverse effects*; D015331:Cohort Studies; D004061:Diflunisal / Q000009:adverse effects; D005767:Gastrointestinal Diseases / Q000139:chemically induced* / Q000453:epidemiology; D006801:Humans; D012720:Severity of Illness Index
D000894:Anti-Inflammatory Agents, Non-Steroidal; D004061:Diflunisal