New ACG Awareness Campaign Tackles Risk of Potentially Serious GI Injury and Bleeding from NSAIDs

A new ACG program to educate physicians and patients about the safe and appropriate use of pain medications will focus on the potentially serious gastrointestinal complications of NSAIDs. In Honolulu the College and the ACG Institute for Clinical Research & Education launched a new educational initiative, Understanding Ulcers, NSAIDs & GI Bleeding. This program will clarify for physicians and consumers alike the potentially serious complications associated with NSAIDs.

ACG is undertaking this important new education initiative because many patients who regularly used COX-II agents and are now using traditional NSAIDs may have questions and are possibly unaware of potentially serious issues regarding ongoing use of NSAIDs. The College is concerned that if patients taking COX-II drugs revert to NSAIDs in significant anti-inflammatory doses, the incidence of gastrointestinal injury, ulcers and related bleeding could increase significantly.

The goals of the ACG’s multi-faceted program are to introduce new scientific information regarding the prevention of NSAID-induced injury and GI bleeding and, most importantly, to clarify in the minds of physicians and consumers appropriate options for pain management as alternatives to the COX-II class of therapies.

Educational materials targeted to physicians, and through doctors to patients, will be the cornerstone of this new program, which features new patient brochures and an educational slide program, among a range of other educational tools. These new materials were developed under the auspices of an expert working group that included ACG physician leaders David Y. Graham, M.D., MACG, Eamonn M.M. Quigley, M.D., FACG, Frank L. Lanza, M.D., FACG, Francis K.L. Chan, M.D., FACG and Neena S. Abraham, M.D.

The new NSAIDs slides on CD-ROM for physician education and new patient education materials are available free of charge for use by ACG members and can be ordered through the ACG Web Site through the Online Store.

New Tool Kit for Use with Primary Care Colleagues
In addition to these excellent new patient and physician education materials, a new “Tool Kit” for primary care physicians is available that will be mailed in the coming weeks to College members. Designed for ACG member GI specialists to send to their referring physicians in the community, this kit includes a concise Reference Guide for Primary Care Physicians, article reprints, samples of Patient Education Brochures and re-order forms, as well as an overview of case law in the area of NSAIDs and GI injury. Two patient brochures included in the Kit are Ulcers and Gastrointestinal Bleeding: Protecting Your Health and a pamphlet What You Need to Know about the Safe & Appropriate Use of Common Pain Medications – The Essential Facts for Consumers

The College developed this Tool Kit to help primary care physicians in understanding, decision-making, and communicating with patients about issues relating to chronic pain relief and risks of ulcers and GI bleeding. The essential message to primary care colleagues conveyed in the materials is that GI specialists, who are generally the physicians who are called upon to identify the source of GI bleeding and treat patients on an urgent basis in emergency rooms when GI bleeding episodes occur, are available to assist in evaluating the gastrointestinal risks in patients needing chronic pain relief.

The College acknowledges with thanks support from AstraZeneca LP of Wilmington, Delaware and TAP Pharmaceutical Products Inc. of Lake Forest, IL for various individual components of the NSAIDs initiative, including grants in support of printing for new educational brochures, and for their ongoing commitment to enhancing patient awareness of gastrointestinal health.