Voltaren Lawyers

The commonly used anti-inflammatory drug, also sold as Voltaren and Cataflam, carries as high a risk of heart attack or stroke as Vioxx.

The new analyses also provide even more evidence of the dangers to the heart and kidneys posed by Vioxx, which was pulled from the market two years ago.

The latest findings should help patients and doctors confused about painkiller safety since news began unfolding about the risks of Vioxx, Bextra and other nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs.

"If something hashelped you in the past and you haven't experienced an adverse reaction with it, stay with that drug,"advises Larry Sasich, a pharmacy school instructor and consultant to Public Citizen's Health Research Group.

Based on a study that group did with Hartford Medical School, patients should wait seven years before trying a new drug, Sasich said. By then, safety problems usually become clear. Patients also should review the Food and Drug Administration guide to NSAIDS on its Web site or ask a pharmacist.

Those especially worried about safety could try pain ointments first, said Dr. Richard Jermyn, director of the University Pain Care Center in Stratford, N.J. If they don't help, he suggests Tylenol, then naproxen or ibuprofen before resorting to Celebrex, a Pfizer Inc. drug in the same class as Merck&Co.'s Vioxx. He urges patients on any of those drugs to get liver and kidney function tests every six months.

The heart risks from diclofenac were reported by researchers at the University of Newcastle in Australia. That report recommends regulators review whether diclofenac should stay on the market.

The FDA said in a written response that none of the new information warrants a change in its regulations on NSAIDs.

The same report also showed increased cardiovascular risk with another old but less-used drug, indomethacin, and"probably"the same with the newer Mobic, Dr. David J. Graham, an FDA drug safety expert critical of the agency's handling of Vioxx concerns, wrote in an editorial.

Mobic, made by Boehringer Ingelheim Corp., is widely used in Australia and many U.S. patients were switched to it amid worries that all the cox-2 inhibitors _ the class that includes Vioxx and Celebrex _ increased cardiac risk.