A major international trial has found that celecoxib is safer than conventional nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs when it comes to avoiding gastrointestinal events in patients with arthritis.
The data come from the GI portion of the multinational PRECISION trial, which directly compared a celecoxib, a cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) inhibitor, with two nonselective NSAIDs. The cardiovascular portion of the study, which found the COX-2 inhibitor noninferior for safety, was published previously (N