According to a leading British specialist, new drugs being tested for migraine sufferers cut the number of attacks and could help prevent them altogether.
The treatment is called Tonabersat and ‘turns down’ hyperactive nerves, which promote debilitating headaches.
Another pill, referred to as NK0974, is said to lift the pain from sufferers within two hours of taking it. Doctors say that more data is needed to calculate their effectiveness but US trials have so far indicated that patients had fewer side effects than currently licensed drugs.
Often called ‘gap junction blockers’, Tonabersat is part of a new wave of drugs that moderate the intensity of chemical messengers passed between brain cells.
Scientists believe migraines are set off by over-responsive brain cells, which trigger nerves to release chemicals that irritate and cause blood vessels on the brain’s surface to swell.
“If these U.S. studies are suitably positive this will be a step- change for the good and enable better understanding of migraines,” said Professor Peter Goadsby, from the Institute of Neurology in London.
Around six million in the UK get migraines, with one in four suffering the most severe type called migraine with aura. A migraine attack can last between four and 72 hours causing visual disturbances, dizziness, nausea and sensitivity to light and sound. Most sufferers are aged between 30 and 50.
Professor Goadsby said research published earlier this year, which involved 227 patients taking NK0974 or conventional drugs to treat acute migraine attacks, “had shown promising results.”
Around 45 per cent of those taking the new drug were pain-free after two hours, and the effect was sustained for 40 per cent after 24 hours.
The use of Tonabersat could help patients prevent the onset of an attack, but one of the biggest problems for sufferers was being unable to predict when a migraine would strike, he said.
Yet between one-third and a half of patients could benefit from taking preventive treatment already available.UK figures however suggest around two million sufferers are currently not receiving such preventive drugs.
He said: “These drugs are under prescribed, probably only half are getting preventive treatment. ‘About 20 per cent of sufferers have four or more attacks a month and they would benefit.”
Sadly for migraine sufferers it will be at least two years before the new drugs are available here.
