About Arthritis
Arthritis is typically thought of as a disease of the elderly. While many patients that have arthritis are older, arthritis is in fact not a single ailment, but a complex group of over 100 distinct conditions that can affect patients of any age.
The most common forms of arthritis are osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis. These two types of arthritis have different causes and different risk factors, but the resulting symptom is the same: joint pain. Arthritis pain can occur in any joint of the body, but it is most prevalent in the knee, wrist, hand and hip joints.
Since arthritis causes long-term injury and inflammation to joints, the body constantly produces prostaglandins. Released any time there is inflammation or injury, prostaglandins are a group of potent hormone-like substances produced in human tissue to mediate a wide range of physiological functions, such as control of blood pressure, inflammation, etc. The release of prostaglandins contributes to the joint pain associated with arthritis and other inflammatory ailments.
Prostaglandin production is controlled by a group of enzymes called cyclooxygenase or COX. There are two known types of COX enzymes: COX-1 and COX-2. The COX-2 enzymes are thought to be the most closely associated with pain and thus many pain relievers have been developed to block the effects of the COX-2 enzyme.
Vioxx was one of the most widely used COX-2 inhibitor drugs for the treatment of arthritis. In September 2004, the drug was voluntarily recalled by Merck for serious drug side effects related to heart attack, stroke and blood clotting.
The other best-selling COX-2 inhibitors, Celebrex and Bextra, have also been found to increase the rate of cardiovascular events. Pfizer, the manufacturer of Celebrex and Bextra, have not pulled the drugs from the market, but stopped direct marketing to consumers.