Would your patient benefit from a monoclonal antibody?
These unique agents may be the answer when other treatments fail or are intolerable for patients with asthma, atopic dermatitis, hyperlipidemia, osteoporosis, or migraine headaches.
PRACTICE RECOMMENDATIONS
› Consider anti-immunoglobulin E, anti-interleukin 5, or anti-interleukin 4/interleukin 13 for patients with moderate-to-severe asthma and type 2 airway inflammation. B
› Consider dupilumab for patients with moderate-to-severe atopic dermatitis (with or without topical corticosteroids), or when traditional oral therapies are inadequate or contraindicated. B
› Consider proprotein convertase subtilisin/kexin type 9 inhibitors for patients with heterozygous familial hypercholesterolemia or clinical atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease when maximally tolerated statins or ezetimibe have not lowered low-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels far enough. A
Strength of recommendation (SOR)
A Good-quality patient-oriented evidence
B Inconsistent or limited-quality patient-oriented evidence
C Consensus, usual practice, opinion, disease-oriented evidence, case series
The most commonly reported adverse effect for all 4 CGRPs is injection site reaction, which was highest with the quarterly fremanezumab dose (45%).37 Constipation was most notable with the 140-mg dose of erenumab (3%)35; with the other CGRP MAbs it is comparable to that seen with placebo (< 1%).
Erenumab-induced hypertension has been identified in 61 cases reported through the FDA Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS) as of 2021.41 This was not reported during MAb development programs, nor was it noted during clinical trials. Blood pressure elevation was seen within 1 week of injection in nearly 50% of the cases, and nearly one-third had pre-existing hypertension.41 Due to these findings, the erenumab prescribing information was updated to include hypertension in its warnings and precautions. It is possible that hypertension could be a class effect, although trial data and posthoc studies have yet to bear that out. Since erenumab was the first CGRP antagonist brought to market (May 2018 vs September 2018 for fremanezumab and galcanezumab), it may have accumulated more FAERS reports. Nearly all studies exclude patients with older age, uncontrolled hypertension, and unstable cardiovascular disease, which could impact data.41
Overall, this class of medications is very well tolerated, easy to use (again, excluding eptinezumab), and maintains a low adverse effect profile, giving added value compared with conventional preventive migraine medications.
The American Headache Society recommends a preventive oral therapy for at least 3 months before trying an alternative medication. After treatment failure with at least 2 oral agents, CGRP MAbs are recommended.42 CGRP antagonists offer convenient dosing, bypass gastrointestinal metabolism (which is useful in patients with nausea/vomiting), and have fewer adverse effects than traditional oral medications.
Worth noting. Several newer oral agents have been recently approved for migraine prevention, including atogepant (Qulipta) and rimegepant (Nurtec), which are also CGRP antagonists. Rimegepant is approved for both acute migraine treatment and prevention.
Continue to: Migraine
