Background
Erenumab was approved in Europe for migraine prevention in patients with ≥ 4 monthly migraine days (MMDs). In Spain, Novartis started a personalized managed access program, which allowed free access to erenumab before official reimbursement. The Spanish Neurological Society started a prospective registry to evaluate real-world effectiveness and tolerability, and all Spanish headache experts were invited to participate. We present their first results.
Methods
Patients fulfilled the ICHD-3 criteria for migraine and had ≥ 4 MMDs. Sociodemographic and clinical data were registered as well as MMDs, monthly headache days, MHDs, prior and concomitant preventive treatment, medication overuse headache (MOH), migraine evolution, adverse events, and patient-reported outcomes (PROs): headache impact test (HIT-6), migraine disability assessment questionnaire (MIDAS), and patient global improvement change (PGIC). A > 50% reduction of MMDs after 12 weeks was considered as a response.
Results
We included 210 patients (female 86.7%, mean age 46.4 years old) from 22 Spanish hospitals from February 2019 to June 2020. Most patients (89.5%) suffered from chronic migraine with a mean evolution of 8.6 years. MOH was present in 70% of patients, and 17.1% had migraine with aura. Patients had failed a mean of 7.8 preventive treatments at baseline (botulinum toxin type A—BoNT/A—had been used by 95.2% of patients). Most patients (67.6%) started with erenumab 70 mg. Sixty-one percent of patients were also simultaneously taking oral preventive drugs and 27.6% were getting simultaneous BoNT/A. Responder rate was 37.1% and the mean reduction of MMDs and MHDs was -6.28 and -8.6, respectively. Changes in PROs were: MIDAS: -35 points, HIT-6: -11.6 points, PIGC: 4.7 points. Predictors of good response were prior HIT-6 score < 80 points (p = 0.01), ≤ 5 prior preventive treatment failures (p = 0.026), absence of MOH (p = 0.039), and simultaneous BoNT/A treatment (p < 0.001). Twenty percent of patients had an adverse event, but only two of them were severe (0.9%), which led to treatment discontinuation. Mild constipation was the most frequent adverse event (8.1%).
Conclusions
In real-life, in a personalized managed access program, erenumab shows a good effectiveness profile and an excellent tolerability in migraine prevention in our cohort of refractory patients.
We studied in the Wistar rat the effect of bilateral ovariectomy and of the administration of estradiol (E2) alone or together with medroxyprogesterone (MPA) on the lipid peroxidation (MDA) and the enzymatic (SOD and catalase) and non-enzymatic (vitamins A and E) antioxidant systems. At 15 days after castration, we observed no variations in the lipid peroxidation levels (MDA), with there being a slight increase in vitamins A and E (p<0.05), catalase (p<0.01), and SOD (n.s.) activity. The addition of estradiol led to a decline (n.s.) in the MDA values and in the catalase and SOD activity, with no modification of the vit. A and E concentrations. The combined (E2+MPA) therapy did not modify the results obtained with E2 alone, although the catalase decline did now reach significance (p<0.05).
Abstract1
A 24 years old male with pseudohermaphroditism due to a deficiency in 17-ketosteroid reductase activity is described. Plasma Δ4 is 21 times higher than normal for an adult male, Δ4/T is greater than 6, both E1 and E2 are elevated and E1/E2 = 3.
There is very slight modification of Δ4 on administration of ACTH, dexamethasone, hCG and fluoxymesterone. Steroid concentrations in the spermatic veins and arteries confirm the testicular origin of the increased secretion of Δ4 and E1 and show a lower secretion by the cryptorchidic testis.
In vitro testicular tissue incubation and fibroblast studies confirm the 17-ketosteroid reductase deficiency and rule out any other anomaly as the cause of the ambiguous genitalia.
Psychologically the patient seemed to be identified with a female social and sexual role in spite of her advanced degree of virilization.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.