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medpundit |
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Friday, December 17, 2004Pfizer said the Celebrex trial involved patients taking 400-milligram and 800-milligram daily doses of the drug to prevent tumors that grow from glandular tissue, known as adenomas. The anti-inflammatory drug was being tested on the theory that inflammation is a cause of cancer. Vioxx and Celebrex both work by selectively blocking a protein called COX-2 that has been linked to inflammation. They were both launched in 1999 and quickly became top-selling drugs, helped by massive television and print advertising. Pfizer also said on Friday that Celebrex was not shown to increase heart risk in a second long-term trial designed to see if the drug could prevent colon polyps. Negative findings in a similar trial led to the withdrawal of Vioxx. New York-based Pfizer said National Cancer Institute officials decided to halt the Celebrex trial on adenomas after confirming "an approximately 2.5-fold increase" in the risk of fatal or non-fatal heart attack in patients taking the drug, compared with patients taking a placebo. The full details aren't available, so it's impossible to say how significant that 2.5 fold increase is. Is it from 10% to 25% or from 1% to 2.5%, but given the recent events with Vioxx, it does make one hesitant to prescribe these sorts of drugs in these litiginous times. posted by Sydney on 12/17/2004 03:07:00 PM 0 comments 0 Comments: |
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