Efficacy and safety of enflicoxib for treatment of canine osteoarthritis

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Salichs, M. et al (2021) Efficacy and safety of enflicoxib for treatment of canine osteoarthritis: A 6‐week randomised, controlled, blind, multicentre clinical trial. Veterinary Record, p. e949. https://doi.org/10.1002/vetr.949

Summary

The objective of this prospective randomised controlled trial was to confirm the safety and efficacy of enflicoxib for the treatment of naturally occurring osteoarthritis (OA) in dogs. The study, which was carried out at 28 veterinary practices located throughout Spain and France, was funded by Ecuphar, manufacturers of enflicoxib and two of the authors work for Ecuphar.

In veterinary practice we are often reliant on studies funded by pharmaceutical companies, especially when it comes to new products. While randomised controlled trials are considered the most appropriate study design for comparing treatments, it is still important to critically appraise the study to assess any potential bias and consider how appropriate the findings are to your own patients.

The  December 2021 edition of inFOCUS contains a summary of this paper.

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We have produced a guide that you can use to work through this paper as a practice.  For those less confident in assessing published papers there is a partially completed guide.

Working through this guide will help you pick out points that can help you assess the efficacy and safety of this product as well as help you build confidence in assessing  other papers reporting on efficacy and safety of veterinary medicines more widely.

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Further reading

Wareham, K.J. et al (2017) Sponsorship bias and quality of randomised controlled trials in veterinary medicine. BMC Veterinary Research, 13, no. 234 . https://doi.org/10.1186/s12917-017-1146-9

European Medicines Agency: Committee for Medicinal Products for Veterinary Use (2021) CVMP assessment report for Daxocox.  Available from: https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/documents/assessment-report/daxocox-epar-public-assessment-report_en.pdf

Veterinary Medicines Directorate (2021) Summary of Product Characteristics Daxocox. Available from: https://www.vmd.defra.gov.uk/ProductInformationDatabase/files/SPC_Documents/SPC_2050514.PDF

Homedes, J., Salichs, M. and Guzman, A. (2021) Long-term safety evaluation of Daxocox® tablets (enflicoxib) in dogs after weekly oral administrations for seven months. BMC Veterinary Research, 17 no. 205. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12917-021-02910-0

Hunt, J.R. et al (2015) An analysis of the relative frequencies of reported adverse events associated with NSAID administration in dogs and cats in the United Kingdom. The Veterinary Journal, 206 (2), pp. 183-190. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tvjl.2015.07.025

Knowledge Summaries

If you are interested in comparison between different NSAIDs you may be interested in the following Knowledge Summaries published in Veterinary Evidence.

• Is Robenacoxib Superior to Meloxicam in Improving Patient Comfort in Dogs Diagnosed With a Degenerative Joint Process?
• Non-Steroidal Anti-inflammatories: Does carprofen or meloxicam have fewer gastrointestinal side effects?
• In dogs diagnosed with osteoarthritis, is meloxicam superior to carprofen for reducing patient discomfort?
• Comparison of the effect of marine-derived omega-3 fatty acids (n-3 FAs) as an adjunct to a non-steroidal inflammatory drug (NSAID) therapy vs NSAID therapy alone, for dogs with osteoarthritis