Patients with episodic migraine (EM) are treated with prophylactic medicines. These preventives are helpful to reduce the headache’s severity, frequency, or associated disease. The patients in a Phase 3b LIBERTY study did not respond positively. This study aims to assess the effects of erenumab on EM patients with 2 to 4 previous, failed preventives.
The study involved 246 EM patients with failed functional outcomes and self-reports. They were randomized 1:1 into erenumab or placebo treatment every 4 weeks for 12 weeks. The first group received 140 mg erenumab subcutaneously. Migraine Physical Function Impact Diary (MPFID), Work Productivity and Activity Impairment (WPAI), and Headache Impact Test (HIT-6) scores at Week 12 were evaluated. The P values, without multiplicity adjustment, were nominal.
The MPFID scores 12 weeks for Physical Impairment (PI) and Everyday Activities (EA) favored erenumab. The treatment difference (TD) of MPFID-PI was −3.5 while MPFID-EA was −3.9. The erenumab patients were more likely to reduce MPFID scores by >= 5 points with MPFID-EA at 2.1 and MPFID-PI at 2.5. The HIT-6 shows a similar trend with higher erenumab patients reporting ≥ a 5-point reduction. 3 out of 4 WPAI domains also emphasized erenumab improvements over the placebo treatment.
The erenumab treatment achieved more efficacious functional outcomes at 12 weeks. The patients with 2 to 4 failed preventives responded positively.
Ref: https://jnnp.bmj.com/content/early/2021/01/05/jnnp-2020-324396
