Summary

The nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) are essential pharmacological agents to control acute and chronic inflammation in patients whith rheumatoid arthritis (AR). They are rarely used isolated in the treatment of this disease, being commonly associated to corticoid, slow-acting anti-rheumatic drugs and immunomodulators. Unfortunately they provoke enormous variety of colateral effects, that increases proportionally to the time of the use, and almost always is prolongated in patients with AR.

The new NSAIDs, specific blokers of ciclooxigenase 2, enzyme in charge of the production of prostanoids responsible for the modulation of inflammatory reaction. They are promising in the treatment of AR, particularly for causing minor production of toxicity, mainly gastrointestinal. Many questions still don’t have definite answers, for example, his efficacy on controlling the chronic inflammation and the consequences of intensive and prolongated inhibition of constitutive ciclooxigenase 2 in several tissues, like: cartilaginous, renal and reproductive organs. Surely the questions will only be answered after an extended use of the drug.