[Treatment and prophylaxis of alimentary tract lesions caused by non-steroid anti-inflammatory drugs].

Non steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) are of common use. Apart from indisputable advantages their use is associated with adverse events. Those in alimentary tract are the most common and could be serious. Although alimentary tract damage can happen without warning, it is possible to anticipate them and are dependent on known risk factors. Therefore it is advisable to assess gastroenterologic and cardiac risk factors in all patients planned to be treated with those drugs. If there are gastric risk factors prophylactic proton pump inhibitors should be prescribed. The same should be in case of patients receiving small dose of acetylsalicylic acid. In patients with high risk of gastric adverse events and low cardiac, selective COX-2 inhibitors could be used but with proton pump inhibitors. In patients planned with protracted NSAIDs treatment it is advisable to use Helicobacter pylori infection test and in case of eradication should be introduced. After successful Helicobacter pylori treatment in case of other risk factors existence inhibitor proton pump should be used. In paper authors presented prevalence of adverse events associated with non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and possibility of their treatment and prophylaxis.