Evidence Hub

Long-term reductions in acute headache medication use after eptinezumab treatment in patients with migraine and prior preventive treatment failures: Post hoc analysis of the DELIVER randomized trial

Gryglas-Dworak A, Schim J, Ettrup A, Boserup LP, Josiassen MK, Ranc K, Sperling B, Ashina M

Headache, 2025

890 participants

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate long-term reductions in acute headache medication (AHM) use with eptinezumab versus placebo in patients with prior preventive migraine treatment failures and medication overuse (MO).

BACKGROUND: Preventive migraine treatment is recommended for patients for whom AHMs have failed and for those who are using excessive amounts of AHM. MO may worsen headache and migraine symptoms in people with migraine; it is a risk factor for disease chronification and/or MO headache.

METHODS: DELIVER was a multicenter, parallel-group, double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled, phase 3b clinical trial that randomized adults with migraine and two to four prior preventive failures to eptinezumab 100 mg, 300 mg, or placebo infusion every 12 weeks; patients initially given placebo received eptinezumab 100 mg or 300 mg in the extension period. MO was defined according to diagnostic criteria for MO headache in the baseline diary reports. This post hoc analysis of the DELIVER study included change from baseline in AHM days/month of use (ergotamines, triptans, simple or combination analgesics, and opioids; total and select class-specific use) in the MO population.

RESULTS: A total of 890 patients were included in the total population, and 438/890 (49.2%) had MO at baseline. In both the total population and MO population, eptinezumab resulted in greater reductions in total AHM days/month of use during weeks 1-24 than placebo, with triptans showing the largest reduction among…

How strong is the evidence?

Evidence Hub reads this as a secondary / pooled analysis, done in people. Its evidence level is 3 of 5 (Moderate · trial / cohort / secondary analysis). Trials without a large randomized design, cohorts and secondary analyses give moderate evidence. Reported size: 890 participants or records.

How the five levels of evidence work. The level is assigned automatically from the abstract and can be wrong, so check the paper.

Read the paper

Related studies

Go deeper in Evidence Hub

Evidence Hub adds a study data sheet (design, sample size, evidence level, key numbers), an AI summary and a chat grounded in the paper's text.

Open this study Sign up free