Balancing gastrointestinal benefit-risk in individuals who are prescribed NSAIDs for arthritis.

摘要

Musculoskeletal problems and conditions are widespread and their impact is pervasive. They are the most common cause of severe long-term pain and physical disability, affecting hundreds of millions of people around the world [1]. Those predominantly affecting joints are collectively called arthritis. Arthritis is quite common: one in four Europeans has some form of arthritis or rheumatism and one in five is under long-term treatment for it [2]. As our population ages, these numbers are unlikely to go down. The burden of rheumatic diseases may not be heavy in terms of mortality but the effect on daily life is significant. In fact, it has been reported that musculoskeletal conditions have the greatest impact on quality of life compared with other diseases [3, 4]. One UK report found that when their arthritis is bad, 69% of people have difficulty in carrying out daily tasks and 54% even struggle to get out of bed [5].