The Cox2 saga continues

The recent issue of the Journal of the Royal Society of medicine carried a study by Dr Richard Beasley, on the cardiac risk with the use of celebrex. He concluded that celebrex may be as harmful as vioxx on the heart. After all, they are both COX2 antagonist.

Depending on which studies you wish to quote, the risk of heart attack, from pooled meta-analysis, was between 1.88 to 2.26. (Vioxx had a cardiac risk of 2.24, when compared to the COX1 NSAID). The article again call for a reconsideration on the safety of celebrex, especially for patients with arthritis and heart disease. Looks like the ghost of the harm of COX2 antagonist just refuses to go away. The article rightly concludes that the doctor must choose between helping his patient with severe joint pains, responsive to celebrex, become painfree, against a 2x increase risk of a heart attack. The choice is yours, doc.