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Nature Clinical Practice Cardiovascular Medicine (2006) 3, 586-587
doi:10.1038/ncpcardio0684  
Received 23 June 2006 | Accepted 14 August 2006

Vascular events with selective COX2 inhibitors and NSAIDs: analyzing the risks

James M Brophy

Correspondence Royal Victoria Hospital, Ross 4.12, 687 Pine Avenue West, Montreal, QCH3A 1A1, Canada

Email
 james.brophy@mcgill.ca

This article has no abstract so we have provided the first paragraph of the full text.

The authors of this study are to be commended for their exhaustive meta-analysis; however, several points remain to be considered. Overall study quality could have been improved by following the QUOROM guidelines1 for meta-analyses more closely. Furthermore, a funnel plot to assess the possibility of additional unpublished data and a better description of the process of validating data acquisition and entry would have been useful. Although the statistical model that pools all COX2 inhibitors into one group is justified by testing for statistical heterogeneity, it has low statistical power. Consequently, absence of proof of a difference between COX2 inhibitors does not prove the absence of a difference.

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