SUMATRIPTAN - ADVERSE-EFFECTS AND RISK-FA CTORS IN DAILY CLINICAL-PRACTICE

Aim: The study tried to investigate the efficacy, adverse events and p ossible risk factors of sumatriptan in daily clinical practice. Patien ts arn Methods: 72 outdoor patients, who had treated their headaches a t least once with sumatriptan, partly prescribed to them by outdoor ph ysicians, were asked about their experiences with the drug. According to the criteria of the International Headache Society (1988) 55 patien ts were suffering from migraine, 11 from cluster headache and 6 from t ension-type headache. Results: Migraine and cluster patients rated the drug as effective as described in literature. Adverse events were rep orted by 69% of the patients, which was more frequent than in most cli nic studies described. Adverse events were usually not serious and tra nsient. They were reported significantly more often by migraine patien ts than by patients with cluster headache and might not all be con-ela ted to the therapy of sumatriptan. Conclusion: Sumatriptan has shown t o be effective in the treatment of an acute migraine and cluster-heada che. The risk as to severe adverse events, especially cardial adverse events, exists if contraindications for sumatriptan are not considered . Sumatriptan should therefore only be prescribed to carefully diagnos ed migraine and cluster headache patients. It should, however, not be given to patients suffering from drug abuse, because they might just c hange over to sumatriptan.