New drug may help prevent migraines in hard-to-treat cases

A migraine It is one of the most common types of headache, affecting between 10% and 20% of the population. In addition to pain, the problem can be accompanied by sensitivity to light, smells or noises, nausea and vomiting, visual discomfort, tingling and dizziness.

Marcelo Ciciarelli, from the Scientific Headache Department of the Brazilian Association of Neurology, explains that migraine is hereditary. “She usually has moderate to severe pain. It’s called pulsatile. It usually gets worse with movement and is usually associated with intolerance to light, noise, nausea and vomiting. In certain cases, they trigger odor intolerance,” he says.

A new drug may help prevent migraines for people who have failed treatment with other drugs. According to one study, the drug atogepant acts on a protein related to the calcitotin gene, or CGRP inhibitor, which plays a key role in initiating the migraine process. The research involved people with episodic migraines, defined as having up to 14 migraine-like headache days per month.

“These results are exciting, as migraines can be debilitating, and this treatment led to fewer migraine days for people who had tried up to four other types of migraine-preventing medication and had no improvement or side effects that outweighed the benefits. ,” study author Patricia Pozo-Rosich, a researcher at Vall d’Hebron University Hospital in Barcelona, ​​Spain, said in a statement.

Analysis

The study involved 309 people who had at least four migraine days during the month prior to the study and who tried at least two classes of medication to prevent the health problem without showing improvement. Of these, 44% had already taken three or more classes of preventive medication without success.

For the study, half of the participants took 60 milligrams of atogepant once a day as a pill and the other half took a placebo, a substance with no effect on the body, for 12 weeks.

Those taking the drug had an average of four fewer migraine days per month from the beginning to the end of the study to the end. Meanwhile, those taking the placebo had about two fewer migraine days per month.

Volunteers taking the drug also showed improvement compared to those taking the placebo in how often they needed to take the medication to stop a migraine attack.

The most common side effects were constipation, which occurred in 10% of those taking atogepant and 3% of those taking the placebo, and nausea, which occurred in 7% of those taking the drug and 3% of those taking the placebo.

“People who thought they wouldn’t find a way to prevent and treat their migraines can hope to find relief with an easy-to-use, tolerable oral medication,” Patricia said in a statement. “This treatment was safe, well-tolerated and effective for people with difficult-to-treat migraines.”

A limitation of the study was the relatively short duration of three months. The researcher added that further studies are needed to assess the long-term efficacy and safety of atogepant.