Age, But Not Sex, Is Associated With the Efficacy of IV Migraine Treatment

“Other investigators reported that women experience migraine recurrence after successful treatment with oral triptans more frequently than men,” said Dr. Friedman. “We were not able to replicate this latter finding in our analysis of sustained headache response, which incorporates the potential for headache recurrence.

“We were unable to find other clinical data that addressed the association between age and response to acute parenteral migraine medication,” he continued. “As with sex, other investigators have reported that middle-aged adults were more likely than younger adults to report recurrence of headache after using an oral triptan. This finding was not supported in our assessment of sustained outcomes.”

The authors acknowledged several limitations of their study, including a gender imbalance in the patient population that resulted from the higher prevalence of migraine among women. Although the imbalance decreased the power of the sex analysis, the data appear sufficiently robust to detect meaningful differences, said Dr. Friedman.

“Future work should investigate sex- and age-based response to other parenteral migraine medications, including migraine-specific agents such as sumatriptan and dihydroergotamine,” Dr. Friedman concluded.

—Erik Greb