Spotlight on frovatriptan: a review of its efficacy in the treatment of migraine

Migraine is a common neurovascular disorder, affecting millions of people worldwide. Current guidelines recommend triptans as first-line treatment for moderate-to-severe migraine attacks. Frovatriptan is a second-generation triptan with a longer terminal elimination half-life in blood than other triptans (~26 hours). Three double-blind, randomized crossover preference studies have been recently conducted, assessing efficacy and safety of frovatriptan versus rizatriptan, zolmitriptan, and almotriptan, respectively. Frovatriptan showed favorable tolerability and sustained effect, with a significantly lower rate of relapse over 48 hours versus the other triptans. These findings were confirmed in a series of analyses of patient subsets from the three studies, including patients with menstrually related and oral contraceptive-induced migraine, hypertension, obesity, weekend migraine, as well as patients with migraine with aura. In all patient subsets analyzed, lower headache recurrence rates were observed versus the comparator triptans, indicating a more sustained pain-relieving effect on migraine symptoms. A further randomized, double-blind study demonstrated that frovatriptan given in combination with the fast-acting cyclooxygenase inhibitor dexketoprofen provided improved migraine pain-free activity at 2 hours, and gave more sustained pain-free activity at 24 hours, versus frovatriptan alone. These benefits were observed both when the combination was administered early (<1 hour after symptom onset) or late (>1 hour after onset). Different pharmacokinetic, but synergistic, properties between frovatriptan and dexketoprofen may make the combination of these agents particularly effective in migraine treatment, with rapid onset of action and sustained effect over 48 hours. These benefits, together with potential cost-effectiveness advantages versus other triptans could drive selection of the most appropriate treatment for acute migraine attacks.