Efficacy and safety of eptinezumab as preventive treatment for episodic/chronic migraine: A systematic review and meta‐analysis

Migraine, the third most common neurological disorders worldwide, can cause significant burden to the patients. Currently, it has been found that calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) has a significant role in pathophysiology of migraine. This study sought to analyse the efficacy and safety of eptinezumab, one of the CGRP-monoclonal antibody as preventive treatment for episodic/chronic migraine. Specific keywords were used to comprehensively go through the potential articles on ClinicalTrials.gov, Europe PMC, Scopus and PubMed databases until April 2022. All published randomized clinical trials (RCTs) on eptinezumab and migraine were gathered. Statistical analysis was conducted by using Review Manager 5.4 and Comprehensive Meta-Analysis version 3 software. There were four RCTs with 2739 migraine patients in the meta-analysis. In terms of efficacy, our analysis revealed that eptinezumab corresponded with higher reduction in monthly migraine days from baseline to week 12 (standardized mean difference, -0.34 [95% confidence interval (CI), -0.41, -0.28], P < 0.00001; I2 = 0%), higher 75% and 50% migraine responder rate, reduction in rate of migraine on day-1 after dosing, lower headache impact test-6 score on week 4 and week 12. In terms of safety, eptinezumab has comparable adverse events when compared with placebo (risk ratio, 1.01 [95% CI 0.96-1.07], P = 0.63, I2 = 0%). Further regression analysis also revealed that the association between eptinezumab and each outcomes of interest were not influenced by age, gender, body mass index and duration of migraine. This study proposes that eptinezumab is generally effective and safe for the preventive treatment of episodic or chronic migraine.