Current Status of Drug Delivery Approaches and Assay of Anti-Migraine Drugs

Migraine is a chronic, painful, neurological disorder that affects approximately 15% of the population worldwide. It is a form of neurovascular headache: a disorder in which neural events result in the dilation of blood vessels that, in turn, results in pain and further nerve activation. The pathogenesis of migraine is not completely understood, but it is thought that both central and peripheral stimulations can play a role in migraine. Experimental pharmacological evidence suggests that some drugs can have actions in migraine treatment and oral drug delivery is the first choice for these drugs. However, the oral absorption of many drugs is delayed during migraine attacks. Therefore, there may be an advantage to other drug delivery routes, such as parenteral and intranasal. Moreover, nanoparticles can be used for improved drug delivery of anti-migraine agents as they can protect the encapsulated drug from biological and/or chemical degradation, and extracellular transport by P-gp efflux proteins. Various analytical studies have been performed to sensitive and selective assays of antimigraine drugs from commercial and real samples. Anti-migraines, either single or combined with other drugs, can be easily detected by several analytical methods, such as ultraviolet spectrometry, visible spectrometry, high-performance liquid chromatography, liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry, and high-performance thin layer chromatography. This review focuses on the status of antimigraine drug delivery technologies and possible routes for drug delivery. Moreover, it will present their analytical assays with different methods.