Real-world treatment satisfaction with erenumab in migraine: analysis of the US National Health and Wellness Survey

Objective: The treatment landscape for the prevention of migraine has rapidly evolved in recent years with the advent of calcitonin gene-related peptide therapy, including erenumab. The objective of this study was to assess patient-reported treatment satisfaction among erenumab users.

Methods: This retrospective, cross-sectional study used data from the 2019 US National Health and Wellness Survey collected during March-July 2019. Respondents self-reporting physician-diagnosed migraine and currently using erenumab were analyzed. Treatment satisfaction was measured on a seven-point Likert scale. Data were further reported by the duration of erenumab treatment. Data on respondents' socio-demographic characteristics and treatment patterns were also collected.

Results: Overall, 67 respondents using erenumab with or without other migraine preventives for up to 1 year were included in the analysis. The mean (standard deviation) age was 46.7 (12.9) years. Most of the respondents were women (86.6%), White (74.6%), and commercially-insured (67.2%). Notably, 40.3% had ≥1 comorbidity per the Charlson Comorbidity Index. Approximately half of the respondents were college graduates and employed (49.3% each). Among the 67 respondents, 46 received erenumab exclusively. Across both cohorts, the percentage of respondents who were satisfied with erenumab treatment was slightly higher among those with a longer treatment duration (overall erenumab cohort: 63.6%, 69.6%, and 75.8% for 0-<3, 3-<6, and 6-12 months, respectively; erenumab monotherapy cohort: 62.5%, 71.4%, and 87.5% for 0-<3, 3-<6, and 6-12 months, respectively). Treatment patterns before switching to erenumab revealed that most respondents had used ≥1 preventive treatment for migraine (80.6%; 54/67), over two-thirds (33/54) of whom had ≥2 treatment failures owing to nonresponse.

Conclusion: Satisfaction was high among long-term erenumab users, indicating that those using erenumab for a longer duration are more satisfied. Furthermore, this study provided insights on the basic socio-demographics, disease characteristics, and health behaviors of erenumab users as well as their treatment patterns before switching to erenumab.