Letter from the Editor
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Just slightly less than 30 years ago, in December 1992, injectable sumatriptan (Imitrex) was approved by the FDA for the treatment of acute migraine headache.
It was a truly transformational event. Along with empowering millions of migraineurs to effectively treat their most severe headaches without the need for a visit to their provider’s office, an urgent care center or an ER, this groundbreaking “designer drug” set the stage for an unprecedented scientific effort to better understand and treat migraine…an effort that has persisted up to the present.
It was transformational for me personally as well. For years my clinical and research interests had been focused primarily on stroke, but by serendipity I joined with a handful of other clinical investigators to assist in the development of what became Imitrex. For me that experience was a revelation. I learned both that migraine is a biologic disorder and also that, given the right key, the lock to treating migraine could be opened.
Over the years since I’ve been a member of an ever-expanding national and international coalition of clinical investigators who have joined in the effort to construct an arsenal of evidence-based therapies to treat migraine. That effort has been a tremendous success. The number and types of options available now for migraine treatment were unimaginable when I first entered the field, and the experience of helping to develop these new therapies and then watching as patients in general clinical practice respond positively to what was until recently an object of research has been immensely satisfying.
In this issue we highlight three very different therapies: the extract of a root (Petadolex), an old standby now available in promising new delivery system (Trudhesa) and a relative newcomer to the migraine prevention neighborhood that offers both high tolerability and the tantalizing promise of an exceptionally rapid therapeutic response to a sizable portion of those migraineur patients receiving it (Vyepti)
Three more options. Not bad. How nice it is to have options.
