www.ijbcp.com International Journal of Basic & Clinical Pharmacology | October 2018 | Vol 7 | Issue 10 Page 2010 IJBCP International Journal of Basic & Clinical Pharmacology Print ISSN: 2319-2003 | Online ISSN: 2279-0780 Original Research Article A comparative study to assess the safety and efficacy of etoricoxib versus aceclofenac in osteoarthritis Harsimrat S. Waraich, Vikas Kumar*, Ashok Goel, Jatinder Singh INTRODUCTION Osteoarthritis (OA) is most common form of arthritis; also referred as degenerative joint disease or “wear and tear” arthritis. 1 It is usually associated with aging and most likely affect the joints that are continually stressed throughout the years including knees, hips, fingers, and lower spine region. It is one of the ten most disabling disease in developed countries. 2 Almost 9.6% of men and 18.0% of women aged over 60 years, globally, have symptomatic osteoarthritis. 2 It affects about 4-6% of adult population and is mentioned one of the top five chronic disease in India. 3 The goal of osteoarthritis treatment is to reduce pain and improve function as there is no cure for disease, but some treatment attempts to slow the disease progression. 4 Most often, the combination of therapies include physical measures, drug therapy and, sometimes, surgery. 4 Pharmacotherapy for OA is focused mainly to alleviate pain, maintenance of quality of life and preservation of functional independence. At present, there is no pharmacological agents capable of retarding the progression or preventing OA. 5 Pharmacological agents for treatment of OA are, oral acetaminophen, oral and topical non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), oral selective cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) inhibitors, ABSTRACT Background: Osteoarthritis (OA) is most common form of arthritis; also referred as degenerative joint disease or “wear and tear” arthritis. Cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) inhibitors are effective for pain and inflammation in OA and gained importance over conventional non-steroidal anti-inflammatory agents (NSAIDs), as causes significantly less toxicity, particularly, in gastrointestinal tract. The objective of the present research was to study the short-term comparative clinical efficacy of aceclofenac and etoricoxib in patients with osteoarthritis and to compare the safety profile of the two drugs i.e. aceclofenac and etoricoxib. Methods: The present study was a prospective, open label, parallel, intention to treat 80 patients out of 102 screened for osteoarthritis in the Department of Orthopaedics, Guru Nanak Dev Hospital attached to the Government Medical College, Amritsar. Patients were randomly divided in two groups with 40 patients each. Group A patients received Tab etoricoxib 60mg once daily and Group B patients received Tab. Aceclofenac 100mg twice daily. Patients were followed up after three weeks and at six weeks for clinical efficacy and safety. Results: Both the groups found to have significant improvement in signs and symptoms of osteoarthritis. However, aceclofenac was superior to etoricoxib in terms of change in visual analogue scale score, osteoarthritic severity index, patients’ and physicians’ global assessment while, etoricoxib was superior in terms of WOMAC osteoarthritic index and safety parameters in terms of ADR. Conclusions: Etoricoxib was better than conventional NSAIDs for the symptomatic management of osteoarthritis in terms of safety profile and clinical efficacy. Keywords: Aceclofenac, Etoricoxib, Osteoarthritis, VAS, WOMAC DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.18203/2319-2003.ijbcp20183939 Department of Pharmacology, Government Medical College, Amritsar, Punjab, India Received: 07 August 2018 Accepted: 31 August 2018 *Correspondence to: Dr. Vikas Kumar, Email: kumar.vikas444@ gmail.com Copyright: © the author(s), publisher and licensee Medip Academy. This is an open- access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non- Commercial License, which permits unrestricted non- commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.