Vioxx Withdrawal Prompts Reevaluation of COX-2 Inhibitor Safety

"Mechanistically speaking, there are reasons why inhibiting COX-1 and COX-2 might affect cardiovascular risk. Because COX-1 helps promote thrombosis and COX-2 helps inhibit it, blocking COX-2 but not COX-1 could theoretically increase the risk of myocardial infarction and other thrombotic events. On the other hand, inflammation has also been implicated in cardiovascular events, so controlling inflammation via COX-2 inhibition could conceivably be protective."