Efficacy of frovatriptan and other triptans in the treatment of acute migraine of hypertensive and normotensive subjects: a review of randomized studies

Migraine might be associated with high blood pressure (BP), which can cause more severe and more difficult to treat forms of headache. To evaluate the efficacy of frovatriptan and other triptans in the acute treatment of migraine, in patients classified according to a history of arterial hypertension, enrolled in three randomized, double-blind, crossover, Italian studies. Migraineurs with or without aura were randomized to frovatriptan 2.5 mg or rizatriptan 10 mg (study 1), frovatriptan 2.5 mg or zolmitriptan 2.5 mg (study 2), frovatriptan 2.5 mg or almotriptan 12.5 mg (study 3). After treating up to three episodes of migraine in 3 months with the first treatment, patients switched to the alternate treatment for the next 3 months. The present analysis assessed triptan efficacy in 60 subjects with a history of treated or untreated essential arterial hypertension (HT) and in 286 normotensive (NT) subjects. During the study, migraine attacks with aura were significantly more prevalent in HT subjects (21 vs. 13 % NT, p