USING PRETREATMENT QUALITY-OF-LIFE PERCEPTIONS TO PREDICT RESPONSE TOSUMATRIPTAN IN MIGRAINEURS

Quality of life perceptions vary for individuals with similar medical conditions and reflect disease impact. When correlated with subsequent response to treatment, such data may contribute useful insights in un derstanding the determinants of therapeutic effectiveness in selected medical conditions. Two hundred thirty-five migraine patients never pr eviously treated with injectable sumatriptan completed a Short Form-36 questionnaire before receiving a supervised test dose end a prescript ion for the medication. Medical records were examined to determine the number of comorbid conditions, headache characteristics (age at onset , headache frequency, duration of disease, aura, association with mens as, unilaterality, and emesis), and documentation of sumatriptan's eff ect in relieving migraine during 12 months of follow-up. Logistic regr ession was used to identify patient and disease-specific features most closely associated with the dependent variable, clinical response. On e hundred eighty-four patients (78%) reported both relief of symptoms and continued usage of sumatriptan. Patients who experienced emesis wi th headaches (OR=2.05 [1.07, 3.91]) and those with higher pretreatment Physical Functioning scores (OR=3.27 [1.28, 8.37]) were more likely t o respond to sumatriptan. Response to sumatriptan therapy was associat ed with specific pretreatment quality of life domains and headache fea tures. These results may he useful in improving the efficiency of dise ase management strategies for patients with migraine.