Ditans vs Gepants: A Systematic Review and Indirect Network Meta-Analysis for Comparative Analysis of Efficacy and...

An acute attack of migraine, incapacitates the migraineurs, and is widely prevalent. And to warden off its symptoms, recently two groups of drugs have been approved and launched.

The aim of this systematic review and indirect meta-analysis is to evaluate and summarize the effectiveness of these pharmacological interventions in managing the aforesaid disease.

An extensive literature search was done through Cochrane library, Pub Med, clincialtrials.gov, for a period of 5 years (2015-2020), using key words: lasmiditan; ubrogepant; rimegepant; and acute migraine. Randomized double-blind phase III clinical trials, published in English language, were included which explored the efficacy and safety of these drugs. The outcomes of this meta-analysis included proportion of patients' headache, most bothersome symptoms free, and no disability at all at 2 h post-dose, with sustained pain freedom 2-24 h, and experiencing any adverse event. An indirect network meta-analysis was also conducted to determine the comparative effectiveness of these drugs.

A total of seven RCTs involving 7266 patients were included. In general, the new drugs demonstrated better result in all the efficacy parameters. The adverse events were observed in treatment group compared to placebo. While in the indirect comparison, lasmiditan emerged to be superior in all the outcomes, except for sustained pain freedom 2-24 h (rimegepant was better). The adverse events were more with lasmiditan.

All the newer drugs have shown significant improvement in the outcomes analyzed. Lasmiditan appears to be superior among the newer drugs in efficacy; however it has more adverse effects.