A new way to fight migraines

We live closely with our agenda, with a thousand things always waiting to be done, trying to balance family, work and, if possible, some social life. A juggling act that we all manage as best we can. But what happens if all plans are again and again influenced by the symptoms of some pathology? What happens if this pathology takes us out of the game and affects not only us, but also our family or our work environment? This is what happens to them four million people suffer from migraines in Spaina pathology that affects seven percent of Spanish men and more than 17 percent of Spanish women. Nevertheless, 80 percent of patients are women, especially between 20 and 40 years of age, precisely the stage of life with more activity.

So migraine has a direct impact on all areas of life these women who are suddenly paralyzed by a crisis that goes beyond headaches, which leads to sensitivity to external stimuli such as light, noise and even odors. All this together with pain, usually throbbing like a heartbeat, which is usually unilateral and whose intensity is such that it is also associated with nausea or vomiting. The pain, which worsens with any movement, can last from 4 to 72 hours and recur periodically, and there is no way to avoid it. All this means that migraine is second cause of disability in the world and number one among women aged 15 to 49, according to the World Health Organization.

Until now, these patients have had two treatment options. On the one hand, a treatment for an acute crisis, taking effect within a few hours of its administration, in order to be able to restore normal activity. On the other hand, for those patients in whom these crises tend to occur more frequently, preventive treatment is necessary, aimed at reducing both the number of crises and their duration and intensity.

However, since January of this year they have new therapeutic option that arrives in Spain from Pfizer after approval in more than 40 countries. This is rimegepant calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) receptor antagonist which is administered orally. According to Pfizer, rimegepant, commercial name Vydura, is indicated for acute treatment of migraine with or without aura in adults and for the treatment of episodic migraine in adults who have at least four migraine attacks per month. That is, for the first time, one treatment includes both indications.

But that’s not the only improvement it represents. How does this explain Jesus Porta Etessam, Head of the Department of Neurology at the San Carlos Clinical Hospital and President of the Spanish Society of Neurology (SEN), this is a treatment aimed at the pathophysiology of migraine itself, while many of the treatments used so far actually had other indications and were found to be effective. achieve benefits from migraines without knowing why. This led to improvement in side effects as well as improvement in symptoms. “A proportion of patients treated with analgesics develop other types of headaches due to chronic medication use, but this new type of treatment has been shown to reduce the number of headaches,” Dr. Porta-Etessam emphasizes.

In particular, this new therapeutic option helps reduce pain during the first two hours after administration with lasting relief for up to 48 hours without the need for emergency medications. This was accompanied by an effect of reducing the number of migraine days per month, with a global average reduction of 6.2 days in the number of migraine days per month compared to baseline.

To this idea Jose Chavez, Pfizer Spain’s medical director adds that many patients who did not respond to previous treatments have benefited from this new therapy. This, coupled with reduced side effects, will mean fewer drug discontinuations and the ability for patients to achieve greater adherence and a higher quality of life.