SAN DIEGO, California — A evaluate of prescription patterns reveals calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) and gepant drugs for migraine reveals vital gender and racial disparities which will have an effect on entry to care and well being fairness.
Dr Kenneth Tan
“The examine serves as an early steppingstone in figuring out alternatives for additional analysis and intervention to develop entry to migraine therapeutics,” lead investigator Kenneth Tan, MD, a neurology resident at Stanford Well being Care, Palo Alto, California, instructed Medscape Medical Information.
The findings have been offered on June 15 on the American Headache Society (AHS) 2024 Annual Assembly.
The retrospective observational examine used a Stanford database that features de-identified knowledge for sufferers attending the Stanford Headache Clinic. It included 1434 adults identified with persistent migraine with out aura who had obtained a minimum of one prescription for both a CGRP from 2018 to 2022 (erenumab, fremanezumab, galanezumab, or eptinezumab) or gepant, a CGRP small molecule inhibitor, from 2020 to 2022 (ubrogepant, rimegepant, or atogepant).
The evaluation didn’t embrace zavegepant, the primary nasal spray for migraine, which was accepted in 2023 outdoors the examine interval.
From the dataset, researchers extracted intercourse, age, race, ethnicity, and zip code, which they used as a surrogate for earnings. They divided zip codes into quartiles with the primary quartile representing the bottom common annual earnings (as much as $42,212), and the fourth the best earnings ($77,250-$236,912).
Racial, Gender Variations
For CGRPs investigators discovered that males persistently obtained extra prescriptions in comparison with females (P=.035). “This was an sudden discovering” as a result of analysis exhibits that males are inclined to delay in search of therapy for migraine, stated Tan.
A possible contributing issue is that CGRPs are contraindicated in being pregnant and girls of childbearing age, he added.
The typical age of sufferers who obtained a CGRP prescription various over time from 41.5 and 42.5 years though this wasn’t statistically vital.
White sufferers persistently obtained considerably extra prescriptions than did different racial teams though in about 2021, and there was a spike in Black sufferers receiving prescriptions. “There are various attainable causes for this spike, and we hope future research can higher perceive this improve,” stated Tan.
By way of ethnicity, non-Hispanic, non-Latino sufferers persistently obtained extra prescriptions in contrast wth Hispanic or Latino sufferers (P …. to be continued
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