A clinician’s view of strategies for preventing NSAID-induced gastrointestinal ulcers

Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) are among the most commonly prescribed drugs in the world. Each year approximately 100 million NSAID prescriptions are dispensed in the United States [1]. In Canada in 1989, there were 10.7 million prescriptions for NSAIDs[2], a growth rate of 6% per year [3]. In the United Kingdom, nearly 22 million prescriptions for NSAIDs were issued in 1985 [4]. Despite the undoubted efficacy of NSAIDs in pain …