Effectiveness and safety of erenumab and galcanezumab in the prevention of chronic and episodic migraine: A retrospective cohort study

What is known and objective? Erenumab and galcanezumab have shown great results for migraine prevention. However, strict inclusion criteria, absence of concomitant medication and selective outcome report of clinical trials may sometimes be barely representative of the real‐world daily practice. Therefore, this study was designed to evaluate effectiveness and safety of these two monoclonal antibodies targeting calcitonin gene‐related peptide in real‐world patients. Methods This observational, retrospective study evaluated the effectiveness and safety of erenumab 140 mg and galcanezumab 120 mg in 142 real‐world patients who had previously not responded to three well‐established pharmacological alternatives for migraine prevention. To do so, a combination of objective parameters (monthly headache days and acute migraine‐specific medication days) and subjective measurements (Migraine Disability Assessment questionnaire, Headache Impact Test and Visual Analogue Scale), validated for clinical research in migraine, were assessed during clinical interview. Results and discussion Findings here reported show that erenumab and galcanezumab reduced monthly headache days, acute migraine specific medication days per month, Headache Impact Test score, Migraine Disability Assessment Test score and Visual Analogue Scale score after 3 and 6 doses (p