Suprofen. An overview of long-term safety.

Suprofen, a new oral peripherally acting analgesic agent, has been shown to be effective in the relief of acute and chronic pain. This paper reviews data relative to long-term safety from more than 800 patients who received suprofen. Some of these patients were followed up to 2 years. Suprofen was generally found to be at least as safe and as well tolerated as reference drugs of aspirin, propoxyphene and propoxyphene combination. The discontinuance rate because of side effects was 17.7% for patients receiving suprofen and 23.9% for patients receiving reference drugs. Gastrointestinal side effects were the most frequently reported reasons for all patient dropout in all treatment groups. Fewer patients receiving suprofen discontinued due to gastrointestinal side effects (10.9%) than with reference drugs (17.2%).