Effectiveness, and Safety of Eptinezumab in Episodic and Chronic Migraine Headache in the UAE: A retrospective study

Abstract

Background Eptinezumab-jjmr is a humanized IgG1 immunoglobulin monoclonal antibody administered intravenously as a preventative migraine treatment. Previously conducted randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trials exhibited significant reduction in monthly migraine frequency among adults experiencing episodic and chronic migraine. The present study seeks to expand upon the current findings and evaluate Eptinezumab-jjmr’s efficacy as a preventative migraine treatment for chronic and episodic migraine patients in the United Arab Emirates. This study is intended to represent the first real-world evidence study and will hopefully serve as a valuable complement to the existing literature on the subject.Methods This was a retrospective, observational, and exploratory study. The participants included within the study were adult (≥ 18 years) patients diagnosed with either episodic or chronic migraine. Patients were categorized according to their history of previous preventative treatment failure. For the final assessment of treatment efficacy, we included only patients with a minimum of 6 months of clinical follow-up data. Patients were assessed at baseline for their monthly migraine frequency and assessed again at months 3 and 6. The primary objective was to evaluate the efficacy of Eptinezumab-jjmr in reducing migraine frequency among chronic and episodic migraine patients.Results 100 participants were identified, of whom 53 patients completed the study protocol to month 6. 40 (75.5%) were female, 46 (86.8%) were Emirati locals, and 16 (30.2%) were pharmaceutically naïve, having never tried any prior preventative therapy. Additionally, 25 (47.2%) patients met the criteria for chronic migraine (CM), whereas the remaining 28 (52.8%) were diagnosed with episodic migraine (EM). The baseline monthly migraine frequency (MMD) was 12.2 (4.97) days across all participants, 15.6 (3.97) for CM patients, and 9.25 (3.76) for EM patients; by month 6, these frequencies reduced to 3.66 (4.21), 4.76 (5.32), and 2.68 (2.61), respectively. Overall, 58.5% of those enrolled experienced > 75% reduction in MMD frequency by month 6.Conclusion Patients enrolled in this trial experienced clinically significant reductions in MMD by month 6. Eptinezumab-jjmr was well tolerated with only one AE of note.