Antimigraine efficacy of telcagepant based on patient's historical triptan response.

Objective: To evaluate whether the same or different patients respond to triptans and telcagepant.

Background: Telcagepant is an oral calcitonin gene-related peptide receptor antagonist with acute antimigraine efficacy comparable to oral triptans. It is currently unknown whether migraine patients who cannot be adequately helped with triptans might benefit from treatment with telcagepant.

Methods: Post-hoc analysis of data from a randomized, controlled trial of telcagepant (150 mg, 300 mg) zolmitriptan 5 mg, or placebo for a moderate/severe migraine. Responder rates were analyzed according to patients' self-reported historical triptan response (HTR): (1) good HTR (N = 660): response in 75-100% of attacks; (2) intermediate HTR (N = 248): response in 25-74% of attacks; (3) poor HTR/no use (N = 407): response in < 25% of attacks, or patient did not take triptans. A limitation of the analysis is that the last subgroup comprised mainly (91%) patients who reported that they did not take triptans, but it was not known whether these patients were triptan-naïve or had previously used triptans and stopped taking them.

Results: For zolmitriptan, 2-hour pain relief rates were higher in the good HTR subgroup (116/162, 72%) than in the intermediate (29/62, 47%) and poor/no use (44/111, 40%) HTR subgroups. The 2-hour pain relief rates were similar across HTR subgroups for telcagepant 150 mg (48-58%), 300 mg (52-58%), and placebo (26-31%). In the poor/no use HTR subgroup, more patients receiving telcagepant 300 mg (56/98, 57.1%) had 2-hour pain relief than those receiving zolmitriptan (44/111, 39.6%; odds ratio = 2.11 [95% CI: 1.20,3.71], P = .009); the percentage for telcagepant 150 mg (57/119, 47.9%) was not significantly different from zolmitriptan (odds ratio = 1.41 [95% CI: 0.82, 2.40], P = .211).

Conclusions: This suggests that different patients may respond to triptans or telcagepant 300 mg. Caution should be exercised in interpreting the results because of the post-hoc nature of the analysis (clinical trial registry: NCT00442936).