Toward a pragmatic migraine model for drug testing: 1. Cilostazol in healthy volunteers

Emma Katrine Hansen, Song Guo, Messoud Ashina, Jes Olesen

12 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Background A model for the testing of novel antimigraine drugs should ideally use healthy volunteers for ease of recruiting. Cilostazol provokes headache in healthy volunteers with some migraine features such as pulsating pain quality and aggravation by physical activity. Therefore, this headache might respond to sumatriptan, a requirement for validation. The hypothesis of the present study was that sumatriptan but not placebo is effective in cilostazol-induced headache in healthy individuals. Methods In a double-blind, randomized, cross-over design, 30 healthy volunteers of both sexes received cilostazol 200 mg on two separate days, each day followed by oral self-administered placebo or sumatriptan 50 mg. Headache response and accompanying symptoms were registered in a questionnaire by the participants themselves. Results Cilostazol induced a reproducible headache in 90% of the participants. The headache had several migraine-like features in most individuals. Median peak headache score was 2 on the sumatriptan day and 3 on the placebo day (p = 0.17). There was no reduction in headache intensity two hours after sumatriptan (p = 0.97) and difference in AUC 0 to four hours between two experimental days was not significant (p = 0.18). On the placebo day eight participants took rescue medication compared to 3 on the sumatriptan day (p = 0.13). Conclusion Despite similarities with migraine headache, cilostazol-induced headache in healthy volunteers does not respond to sumatriptan.

Original languageEnglish
JournalCephalalgia : an international journal of headache
Volume36
Issue number2
Pages (from-to)172-8
Number of pages7
ISSN0333-1024
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Feb 2016

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Toward a pragmatic migraine model for drug testing: 1. Cilostazol in healthy volunteers'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this