LONDON, 17 September 2003 — Botox injections, already hugely popular for removing wrinkles, can also give long-term relief from migraine, according to results of a clinical study released yesterday.
Ninan Mathew, director of the Houston Headache Clinic, said the findings suggested Botox — a purified form of the toxin that causes botulism food poisoning — could one day become a routine therapy for people with frequent, intractable migraine.
Mathew told the Congress of the International Headache Society in Rome that 208 patients given Botox over three years had experienced a significant reduction in both the severity and frequency of headaches. The drug also seemed to alter disease progression.
“Botox is unlike other available migraine therapies, in that it appears to positively modify the course of the disorder — that is, even after treatment stopped, the intensity and frequency of the patients’ migraines did not return to baseline,” Mathew said.
After a single course of treatment with Botox, there was an average reduction in headache severity from 83.8 on the migraine scale, ranking as “severe disability”, to 27.2, or “mild disability”.
Patients also experienced half the number of headache days they had at the start of the trial three months later and needed only one-quarter of their previously monthly doses of headache pills.
Mathew’s research was sponsored by Allergan Inc., the maker of Botox. The US firm is currently conducting pivotal trials which, if successful, will allow it to file next year for US regulatory approval to use the drug in migraine.
“Hopefully, in the next two years we should have FDA (Food and Drug Administration) approval,” Mathew told Reuters in a telephone interview. “It could become a routine treatment for intractable, chronic migraines — not for ordinary, occasional migraines. This is something reserved for people who have daily, or near-daily, headaches who do not respond to usual treatments.”