Real-world experiences in migraine therapy with rizatriptan

Objective. - To evaluate the effectiveness of rizatriptan for acute migraine treatment and patient satisfaction with the drug in usual clinical practice settings. Background. - Although rizatriptan has been shown to effectively relieve migraine symptoms in clinical trials, we wished to assess its utility in typical patient care settings. Design. - Multicenter, open-label design involving the patients of practicing clinicians. Methods. - Adult migraineurs treated two migraine attacks with either rizatriptan 10-mg standard tablets or rizatriptan 10-mg orally disintegrating tablets in a crossover manner. Participants had not taken rizatriptan previously and chose which formulation to take first. Patients reported their treatment experiences via an interactive voice response system approximately 24 hours after treatment. Prior migraine treatment experiences were reported by patients on a baseline questionnaire completed at participating clinics. We used conditional logistic regression analysis adjusted for treatment sequences to test the statistical significance of comparisons with results recorded on the baseline questionnaire. Results. - Of the 5388 patients enrolled, 3953 (73%) completed at least one follow-up and 3183 (59%) completed two follow-up reports. Patients reported the following outcomes for attacks treated with the rizatriptan tablet and orally disintegrating tablet formulations, respectively, compared with their prior responses to oral usual care medications (P<.05 in all comparisons with baseline data): onset of pain relief within 30 minutes postdose: 18% and 23% versus 16%; no or mild headache 2 hours postdose: 66% and 67% versus 37%; largely symptom-free within 2 hours postdose: 52% and 54% versus 35%; return to usual activities within 2 hours postdose: 50% and 51% versus 31%; and very or somewhat satisfied with treatment: 72% and 74% versus 53%. Conclusions. - In this "real-world" setting involving a patient population selected by clinicians, rizatriptan appeared to offer better treatment outcomes than those from prior treatments with other oral migraine medications.