Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug Therapy

Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug therapy, using drugs commonly known as NSAIDs, reduces pain, decreases inflammation, lowers fever and inhibits blood clotting, and includes common over-the-counter medications such as aspirin, ibuprofen, diclofenac and naproxen. The drugs work by inhibiting the cyclooxygenase enzymes, COX-1 and COX-2, which normally produce the prostaglandins and thromboxanes involved in inflammation and clotting; aspirin inhibits these enzymes irreversibly, while most other NSAIDs do so reversibly. The term nonsteroidal arose around 1960 to distinguish the class from corticosteroids, an older anti-inflammatory drug class that had developed a troubled reputation by the 1950s, and NSAIDs are now used to treat osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, headache, menstrual pain, gout and postsurgical pain, with about 60 percent of patients responding to any given NSAID, full pain relief typically emerging within a week and anti-inflammatory benefits taking up to three weeks.