Painkillers during pregnancy may be linked to abnormalities The QUESTION Medications generally considered safe and reliable may have unexpected consequences when taken during a pregnancy. Might that be the case with pain relievers called NSAIDs (nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs)? THIS STUDY analyzed medical data on children born to 36,387 women; 2,571 of these babies were born with a birth defect. Women who had taken NSAIDs -- mainly Aleve (naproxen), Advil (ibuprofen), Vioxx (rofecoxib), Celebrex (celecoxib) and Cataflan or Arthrotec (diclofenac) -- during their first trimester of pregnancy were twice as likely to have had a child with a birth defect as were women who did not take such pain relievers. Heart defects, specifically cardiac septal abnormalities, were most common. More >> | Study Casts Doubt on NSAID Use After Brain Injury - Forbes.com WEDNESDAY, July 26 (HealthDay News) -- Long-term use of the painkiller ibuprofen after brain injury led to a decline in cognitive abilities in rats, a new study found.
The findings may have implications for the treatment of patients with traumatic brain injury, because they are often prescribed ibuprofen and other nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) for chronic pain, said researchers from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.
They published their findings online in the July issue of Experimental Neurology.
| Toxic epidermal necrolysis and Stevens Johnson syndrome: our current understanding. French LE.
Department of Dermatology, Geneva University Hospital and Medical School, Geneva, Switzerland. lars.french@medecine.unige.ch
Stevens-Johnson syndrome (SJS) and toxic epidermal necrolysis (TEN, Lyell's syndrome) are now considered to be distinct clinical entities within a spectrum of adverse cutaneous drug reactions of increasing severity based on their surface of skin detachment. Within this spectrum, SJS which can be considered as a minor form of TEN is characterized by less than 10% body surface area of skin detachment, and an average reported mortality of 1-5%, whereas TEN is characterized by more than 30% skin detachment, and an average reported mortality 25-35%.
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