Vioxx's Heart Risk Lingered Long After...(k stroke or death compared with those wh...),Health

This finding was consistent with the increased risk observed during the trial, where the odds for cardiovascular trouble was more than double for those taking Vioxx. For individual patients, the risk of heart attack or stroke was doubled during the year after stopping the drug. The increased risk of dying was 31 percent compared with those who had taken placebo, the researchers noted.

Bresalier's group did find that Vioxx was able to reduce the recurrence of colon polyps, but this benefit has to be weighed against the increase in cardiovascular risk, they said.

Bresalier suspects that long-term use of all non-aspirin NSAIDs can raise the odds of cardiovascular trouble to some extent.

"Similar data has been evident for some of the other cox-2 inhibitors," he noted. "In fact, it seems to be a class effect for most if not all NSAIDs. There is a dose-dependent risk with Celebrex as well, whose magnitude was not that much different from Vioxx," he said.

Bresalier believes that certain patients should not take high doses of these drugs over a long period. "If you have a history of cardiovascular disease, speak to your doctor to understand the relative risks and benefits. If you're somebody who really needs to take these drugs because of chronic pain or severe arthritis, be aware of the issues. But you shouldn't be afraid to take these drugs if you need them," he said.

For people who take these drugs only intermittently -- for short-term pain relief, for example -- the risk is very small, Bresalier said. "It doesn't mean if you take one or two pills you're going to get a heart attack. For the vast majority of people taking these drugs, these are very good and safe drugs," he said.

Dr. Eric J. Topol, director of the Scripps Translational Science Institute and Chief Academic Officer of Scripps Health in La Jolla, Calif., was not surpris
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