Common painkillers may impair rotator cuff healing

Last Updated: 2006-03-30 14:14:12 -0400 (Reuters Health)

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Experiments in rats show that the painkillers celecoxib (brand name, Celebrex) and indomethacin, given after repair of a rotator cuff injury, impair the healing process, orthopedists report in The American Journal of Sports Medicine.

Both painkillers belong to the class known as non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs or NSAIDs, and recent lab studies have shown that NSAIDs interfere with ligament healing. With this in mind, Dr. David B. Cohen at Yale-New Haven Hospital in Connecticut and colleagues investigated the effect of NSAIDs on bone-to-tendon healing.

The team made rotator cuff repairs in 180 rats. Sixty animals were then given the non-selective NSAID indomethacin for 14 days, 60 were given the selective NSAID celecoxib (a so-called COX-2 inhibitor) for 14 days, and 60 were given neither drug.

Cohen's team reports that five tendons failed to heal -- four in the indomethacin group and one in the celecoxib group. Significantly fewer tendons in the two NSAID groups than in the control group were able bear weight normally.

Even though NSAID treatment was given for only 14 days after surgery, apparently this was enough time to interfere with healing, the researchers note.

If the same effects are seen in larger lab animals, they point out, the "common practice of administering non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs after rotator cuff repair should be reconsidered."

SOURCE: American Journal of Sports Medicine, March 2006.