Migraine is a common disorder but often intractable, forcing patients to undergo debilitating headaches several times a week
One of the commonest neurological ailments, migraine can be notoriously difficult to treat. However a new drug offers hope to the millions around the world who, for most of their lives, have been suffering those debilitating headaches without any remedy.
According to a preliminary study to be presented at the American Academy of Neurology’s 70th Annual Meeting in Los Angeles to be held later this week, the answer could lie in erenumab. Erenumab is a monoclonal antibody that blocks pain signals by targeting a receptor for calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP). This peptide transmits migraine pain signals. Erenumab occupies the nerves to which CGRP would usually bind.
Migraine can be debilitating. Symptoms include moderate to severe pain on one or both sides of the head and may also include nausea or light sensitivity. It can last anywhere from four hours to three days and may prevent people from participating in their normal activities. Those who have episodic migraine have up to 14 headache days a month.
“The people we included in our study were considered more difficult to treat, meaning that up to four other preventative treatments hadn’t worked for them. Our study found that erenumab reduced the average number of monthly migraine headaches by more than 50 percent for nearly a third of study participants. That reduction in migraine headache frequency can greatly improve a person’s quality of life,” said study author Uwe Reuter, MD, of The Charité – University Medicine Berlin in Germany.
Reuter noted that new preventive treatments are needed for migraine, as the current treatments often do not work well or have so many side effects that people stop using them.
People treated with erenumab were nearly three times more likely to have reduced their migraine days by 50 percent or more than those treated with placebo
For the study, 246 people who had episodic migraine were given injections of either 140 milligrams of erenumab or a placebo once a month for three months. Of the participants, 39 percent had been treated unsuccessfully with two other medications, 38 percent with three medications and 23 percent with four medications. On average, participants experienced an average of nine migraine headaches a month and used an acute migraine drug to stop an attack five times a month.
Researchers found that after three months, the people treated with erenumab were nearly three times more likely to have reduced their migraine days by 50 percent or more than those treated with placebo. A total of 30 percent of the people treated with erenumab had half the number of headaches compared to 14 percent on placebo.
Those treated with erenumab also had a greater average reduction in the number of days they had headaches and the number of days they needed to take drugs to stop the migraines. For those on erenumab, there was an average 1.6 times greater reduction in migraine days and a 1.7 times greater reduction in acute medication days compared to those on placebo.
In addition, the safety and tolerability of erenumab was similar to placebo and none of the participants taking erenumab stopped treatment due to side effects. A limitation of the study was its relatively short length of three months. More research will be needed to investigate if benefits continue.
