Prophylactic use was low and associated with a high rate of discontinuation following a brief treatment period in a cohort of Japanese migraine patients, a new study found. Patients aged ≥18 years with ≥1 inpatients or ≥2 outpatient migraine diagnoses, ≥1 outpatient diagnosis and ≥1 migraine-specific acute treatment, or ≥2 migraine-specific acute treatments were identified. Patients were required to be enrolled in a health plan for ≥1 year before and after in the index date. They were stratified by the migraine treatments observed after the index date and described regarding the first migraine treatment regimen and subsequent treatment patterns during up to 1 year of follow-up. Researchers found:

• A total of 16,443 patients met eligibility criteria.
• Acute treatment only (AT) patients had mean 10.3 acute treatment days during 1-year follow-up, and 81.9% received triptans.
• 29.2% of prophylactic with or without migraine-specific acute treatment (PT) patients received prophylactic treatment only and 51.7% received both acute and prophylactic treatment.
• ∼62.2% discontinued initial prophylactic treatment after an average of 61.2 days or persistent treatment.