Richard Lipton, MD: Eptinezumab Maintains Reductions in the Impact of Migraine

At the 2019 American Headache Society Annual Meeting, July 11-14, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, a number of presentations and posters revealed data regarding eptinezumab’s impact on patients with migraine. The anti-calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) therapy has shown promise thus far in reducing the frequency of headache attacks in these patients, but these new data suggest that the Alder Biopharmaceuticals agent may also reduce the impact migraine has on these individuals’ lives.
Richard Lipton, MD, director, Montefiore Headache Center, and professor of neurology, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, was involved in a number of these studies, including a few which focused specifically on the impact of migraine as measured by the 6-item Headache Impact Test (HIT-6) questionnaire. The HIT-6 questionnaire, while easy to implement in practice, has also had its usefulness in migraine clarified in recent works. Using this test, Lipton and colleagues explored eptinezumab’s effect on patients’ scores.
Ultimately, while conducting this subanalysis of the PROMISE-2 study, Lipton and colleagues found that the treatment not only drastically lowered the impact migraine was having on patients, it allowed them to maintain this reduction over the full 6-month treatment period, with some significant reductions seen as early as month 1. To find out more about these findings, NeurologyLive sat with Lipton at the meeting.