RESEARCH ARTICLE
Adverse Events in Patients with Blood Loss: A Pooled Analysis of 51 Clinical Studies from the Celecoxib Clinical Trial Database
GH Sands*, B Shell, R Zhang
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2012Volume: 6
First Page: 44
Last Page: 49
Publisher ID: TORJ-6-44
DOI: 10.2174/1874312901206010044
Article History:
Received Date: 19/1/2012Revision Received Date: 8/2/2012
Acceptance Date: 3/3/2012
Electronic publication date: 11/5/2012
Collection year: 2012
open-access license: This is an open access article licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted, non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the work is properly cited.
Abstract
Background:
Chronic use of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) is associated with an increased risk of gastrointestinal (GI) toxicity, including occult blood loss and the development of clinically significant anemia. The aim of this study was to investigate the clinical importance of clinically significant anemia/blood loss.
Methods:
Pooled analysis of 51 blinded, controlled clinical studies ≥4 weeks duration from the celecoxib clinical trial database, comparing celecoxib with NSAIDs or placebo. The adverse event (AE) profile in patients with clinically significant anemia/blood loss (defined as decreases in hemoglobin ≥2 g/dL and/or hematocrit by ≥10% from baseline) was compared with the AE profile in patients without blood loss. Events that occurred in <0.5% of patients were excluded from any comparisons. A threefold difference between groups was defined arbitrarily as being markedly higher.
Results:
Overall 932/51,048 patients experienced clinically significant anemia/blood loss. Baseline demographics were similar in both groups. The incidence of AEs was markedly higher in patients who experienced clinically significant anemia/blood loss than those who did not; the majority of these differences were for GI AEs or their likely sequelae. The incidence of the following non-GI related AEs was also markedly higher in patients with blood loss: coronary artery disease (1.2% vs 0.3%), myocardial infarction (0.6% vs 0.2%), and pneumonia (1.7% vs 0.4%). Withdrawals due to AEs were more common among patients who experienced blood loss (16.7% vs 10.4%).
Conclusions:
Clinically significant anemia/blood loss may have clinically important adverse consequences beyond the sequelae previously known to be associated with NSAID-related GI effects.
