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The following is a summary of “Real-world experience of erenumab in patients with migraine in Germany: The SPECTRE study,” published in the October 2024 issue of Pain by Gaul et al.
Researchers conducted a retrospective study to furnish real-world insights into patients with migraine in Germany treated with erenumab, focusing on the prescription patterns and reasons for initial dosage choice.
They examined the patients treated with erenumab (n = 571; Germany: 105 sites) with migraine who had received erenumab for not more than 3 months before the study.
The results showed the mean (standard deviation) patient age was 45.0 (12.3) years, with most patients being female (89.0%), Caucasian (97.6%), and non-smokers (85.1%). The starting dose of erenumab in the patients was 70 mg in 68.5% and 140 mg in 31.5%. The proportion of patients with 140 mg as the starting dose was the highest (43.5%) in those aged 30–40. The most common reason for starting a higher dose of erenumab 140 mg was the severity of migraine (47.4%). During the observational period, the proportion of patients taking erenumab 140 mg increased to 64.6% (visit 5; V5) after 12 months. Due to attrition of patients towards the end of the study (V9: 90 participants), data at V9 must be interpreted with caution. At least 1 dose change was performed in 45.3% (i.e., erenumab 70 to 140 mg or 140 to 70 mg), 21.2% of patients attempted at least once to discontinue treatment (i.e., period with erenumab discontinuation and no other antibody treatment for migraine prevention), and 15.3% discontinued erenumab treatment, mainly because of no or insufficient treatment response (13.5%). The mean time until the first omission attempt was 332.3 (range 37–633) days. Constipation (12.1%) was the most frequently reported adverse event, in line with the summary of product characteristics (SmPC) of erenumab.
They concluded the most patients with migraine were prescribed erenumab 70 mg as the starting dose, and no new safety signals were observed for erenumab.
Source: link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40122-024-00658-7
