Aspirin can relieve acute migraine

Individuals who suffer from acute migraine headaches are likely to find relief with aspirin, according to results of a new study.

“Aspirin is a rational” over-the-counter (OTC) choice for people who have migraine, the authors of the research write in the journal Headache.More than 50 percent of migraine sufferers rely on OTC medications for the treatment of their migraine pain and, along with other OTC products, aspirin is considered by the US Headache Consortium to be an option for first-line migraine treatment. Yet few published studies have evaluated aspirin use for migraine headache.Therefore, Dr. Richard B. Lipton, of Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, New York, and colleagues assessed the efficacy of a single 1000-milligram dose of aspirin versus inactive placebo for the treatment of acute migraine with or without aura.Study subjects logged their responses to the randomly assigned study medication in a diary starting at baseline and at 30 minutes, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 24 hours after treatment. They used a 4-point ordinal scale to rate their pain.Of the 485 subjects enrolled in the study, 401 treated a confirmed migraine — 201 with aspirin and 200 with placebo.The 2-hour response rate was 52 percent in the aspirin group versus 34 percent in the placebo group, a significant difference in favor of aspirin.”At 2 hours, 20 percent of subjects treated with aspirin were pain free versus only 6 percent of subjects treated with placebo,” Lipton’s team reports, adding that aspirin provided better pain relief than placebo at all time points except 30 minutes after dosing.Greater reductions in nausea and sensitivity to light and sound were observed in subjects treated with aspirin compared to those treated with placebo and significantly fewer aspirin-treated than placebo-treated patients needed rescue medication at 24 hours (34 percent versus 52 percent).These results demonstrate that aspirin is safe and effective for treatment of acute migraine pain in appropriate patients, the authors conclude.(Source: Headache: Reuters Health: May 2005.)