© 2004 by BMJ Publishing Group Ltd & European League Against Rheumatism
LEADER
Osteoarthritis
A historic issue of the Annals: three papers examine paracetamol in osteoarthritis
1 Academic Rheumatology, Clinical Sciences Building, City Hospital Nottingham, NG5 1PB, UK
2 Department of Rheumatology, King’s Mill Hospital, Sutton-in-Ashfield, NG17 4JL, UK
Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
Professor M Doherty
Michael.Doherty@nottingham.ac.uk
The CONSORT statement for the full reporting of clinical trials should be consistently applied
Keywords: paracetamol; osteoarthritis
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
Although current European League Against Rheumatism (EULAR)1 and American College of Rheumatology (ACR)2 guidelines both support paracetamol (acetaminophen) as the first line oral analgesic for patients with knee osteoarthritis (OA), until now there has been a paucity of clinical trial data to confirm the efficacy of paracetamol in large joint OA. This issue of the Annals is unique in containing one meta-analysis and two large placebo controlled studies that examine evidence for the efficacy of paracetamol in OA. Never in the 127 years of paracetamol’s existence have so much trial data on OA been reported.
Because of the marked placebo effect in pain trials3 comparison with a placebo is clearly important to determine the true efficacy of any analgesic. Therefore it is surprising that despite the widespread use and support of paracetamol in OA until now there have been only four placebo controlled trials of this drug in OA.
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This article has been cited by other articles:
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Bjordal, J M, Ljunggren, A E, Klovning, A, Slordal, L, Doherty, M, Zhang, W
(2005). NSAIDs, including coxibs, probably do more harm than good, and paracetamol is ineffective for hip OA * Authors' reply. Ann Rheum Dis
64: 655-656
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