GI protection advised for all patients on NSAIDs

All patients on long-term NSAIDs should be given gastro-protective agents, a new NHS Health Technology Assessment concludes.

The document, which will be circulated to all PCTs, also recommends use of histamine-2

receptor antagonists ahead of proton pump inhibitors for

low- risk patients.

The researchers said many low-risk patients on NSAIDs were either not given gastro-protection or over-protected through use of a PPI.

Professor Deborah Symmons, one of the reviewers and professor of musculoskeletal epidemiology at the University of Manchester, said: 'I suspect people are either just put on the NSAID or they are given more gastro-protection then they need.'

She added: 'Patients at high risk should be prescribed cox-2s or PPIs.'