A new report published in Thursday's issue of the New England Journal of Medicine reveals that users of the arthritis medication Celebrex are not as protected from bleeding ulcers as once believed. According to the report, at the conclusion of a recent six-month study, which analyzed data from 287 patients who had a previous gastrointestinal ulcer and were at high risk of developing another, 5 percent of the patients who began using Celebrex had developed a bleeding ulcer, equating to nearly 10 percent each year.

Celebrex, which belongs to a class of medications known as COX-2 inhibitors, has been advertised as being safer than earlier nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) because of its tendency to cause fewer gastrointestinal ulcers. Celebrex, along with another COX-2 inhibitor, Vioxx, have been linked to serious side effects, including, but not limited to, blood clots, heart attacks and strokes.