A single blind randomized endoscopic study comparing the effects of diflunisal and naproxen in patients with osteoarthritis.

A single blind randomized endoscopic study comparing the effects of diflunisal and naproxen on the gastric and duodenal mucosa of 34 patients with osteoarthritis was performed over a 2-week period. At the dosages utilized in the study, diflunisal produced significantly less gastric injury than naproxen, as assessed by mean gastric injury scores (p = 0.0002). Sixty-five percent of the diflunisal treated group had no evidence of gastric mucosal injury compared with 13% in the naproxen group. Moreover, treatment with diflunisal resulted in a significantly lower incidence of severe gastric injury than naproxen (p less than 0.01).