Emergency patients treated with naproxen and placebo had outcomes as good as or better than patients treated with naproxen and diazepam (trade name Valium) for acute lower back pain, according to the results of a double-blind, randomized clinical trial published in Annals of Emergency Medicine.
"Our study contributes to the growing body of literature indicating that, in general, most medications do not improve acute lower back pain," said lead study author Benjamin Friedman, MD, MS, of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine/Montefiore Health System in Bronx, New York.