[Endoscopic study on the gastric tolerance of antalgic-antirheumatic substances:parsalmide]

The gastric tolerance of parsalmide, a new analgesic, antirheumatic and sedative substance was tested on a group of 50 arthrorheumatic patients with the purpose of assessing gastric damage if any. It was also compared with the tolerance of the better known antitrheumatic drugs in current use. The study was conducted with the endoscopic method, parsalmide being administered in quantities of 600 mg/die per os, broken up into 3 doses, for a period of 20 days. Unlike phenylbutazone, indomethacin and cortisone, parsalmide showed no ulcerogenous effect nor haemorrhage type alterations at gastroduodenal level, at least in the cases treated. Furthermore, the slight surface oedematous gastropathies that appeared during the research were not important enough to demand suspension of the treatment. Endoscopically this picture can be judged of little clinical importance (as with the majority of well known analgesic-antirheumatic drugs) and its incidence came within the mean. A fair tranquillizing action, detectable in the particularly amenable behaviour of the subjects undergoing endoscopy, is also worth reporting.