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New Combination Drug Treatment for Migraine | |
| By DR. ANDREAS N. NEOPHYTIDES New York University Medical Center For AP Special Features A new combination drug treatment for migraine attacks appears to offer relief that is comparable to the best available therapy, with fewer side effects. The most commonly used drug for treatment worldwide is aspirin. But patients who experience the piercing pain of a migraine attack may have to wait for relief, because the absorption of aspirin by the body is slower than normal during such an attack. Nausea and vomiting that prevent the aspirin from being absorbed are common. A newer drug, sumatriptan, can be used instead of aspirin. It acts faster and is effective in up to two-thirds of migraine attacks. But sumatriptan can't be used by patients who also have coronary disease or high blood pressure, because the drug has adverse effects on the heart. The new combination drug treatment, tried successfully by a multinational group of doctors in Europe, consists of a form of aspirin given with metoclopramide, a drug that is more commonly prescribed for gastrointestinal disturbances. In a trial that included more than 400 migraine sufferers in six countries, the combination treatment proved to be as effective as sumatriptan. It's common for a sufferer to have several migraine attacks in succession. One purpose of the trial was to determine whether the aspirin-plus-metoclopramide combination could not only reduce the severity of the first attack but also relieve the pain of second attacks. The patients were advised to take the two drugs in the early stages of a migraine attack. More than half the patients reported relief from the first attack, about the same effectiveness reported for sumatriptan. The same was true of second attacks - both the combination treatment and sumatriptan gave relief to more than half the patients. In addition, the combination treatment caused fewer adverse side effects than sumatriptan. It thus appears that physicians now have an effective - and less expensive - new weapon against migraine. --- Dr. Andreas N. Neophytides is Clinical Associate Professor of Neurology at New York University School of Medicine. | |