by Shamard Charles, MD 04/17/2018
Click here for the full article on NBCNews.com
More than 37 million Americans suffer from migraine attacks, according to the American Headache Society. Of these, about 4 million have chronic migraine and suffer headaches for 10 to 14 days a month.
Erenumab is part of new class of drugs —fully human monoclonal antibodies — that block calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP), a molecule that transmits migraine pain signals during an attack, and research has shown an increased concentration of CGRP in people undergoing migraine attacks. This drug, Erenumab, is a long-lasting injection that is meant to stop a migraine before it even starts by inhibiting CGRP, which has been shown to prevent a migraine from occurring roughly 50% of the time.
Researchers found that the drug reduced the average number of monthly migraine headaches by more than 50 percent for nearly a third of study participants. After three months, patients treated with the human antibody were nearly three times more likely to have reduced their migraine days by 50 percent or more, than those treated with placebo.
They also had a greater average reduction in the number of days with headaches and the number of days they needed to take drugs to stop the migraines.
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