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WEDNESDAY, July 10, 2019 (HealthDay News) — Galcanezumab can reduce the frequency of episodic cluster headache attacks, according to a study published in the July 11 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Peter J. Goadsby, M.D., Ph.D., from King’s College London, and colleagues enrolled patients who had at least one attack every other day, a total of at least four attacks, or no more than eight attacks per day during a baseline assessment. Recruitment was halted before the planned sample size of 162 patients was reached because too few volunteers met the eligibility criteria; a total of 106 patients were enrolled and randomly assigned to receive either galcanezumab (300 mg) or placebo (49 and 57 patients, respectively), administered subcutaneously at baseline and one month.<\/p>\n
The researchers found that the mean reduction in the weekly frequency of cluster headache attacks across weeks 1 through 3 was 8.7 and 5.2 attacks in the galcanezumab and placebo groups, respectively (difference, 3.5 attacks per week; 95 percent confidence interval, 0.2 to 6.7; P = 0.04). The percentage of patients with a reduction of at least 50 percent in headache frequency at week 3 was 71 and 53 percent in the galcanezumab and placebo groups, respectively (P = 0.046). With the exception of injection-site pain, experienced by 8 percent of patients in the galcanezumab group, no substantial between-group differences were seen in the incidence of adverse events.<\/p>\n
“Longer and larger trials are required in order to determine the durability and safety of this medication,” the authors write.<\/p>\n
The study was funded by Eli Lilly, the manufacturer of galcanezumab.<\/p>\n
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