Oral Medications for the Management of Acute Migraine Headache in the Emergency Department

Summary

The goal of this pilot randomized control trial is to assess the feasibility of our patient recruitment and data collection strategy ahead of a full scale RCT investigating the efficacy of oral v. parenteral medications in the management of acute migraine headaches in the emergency department. Patients will be randomly assigned to receive either (A) standard medical therapy for the treatment of acute migraine headache (metoclopramide and ketorolac IV) and oral placebo or (B) oral metoclopramide and ibuprofen with normal saline IV. Primary outcome measures are recruitment rate and improvement in pain score at 60 minutes from medication administration.

Timeline

Start

2023-06-28

Primary completion

2026-08-07

Completion

2026-08-07

Outcome

Outcome not reported

Stopped: “The project proved not feasible to launch at Health Sciences North.”

Publications

• Background Azzopardi TD, Brooks NA. Oral metoclopramide as an adjunct to analgesics for the outpatient treatment of acute migraine. Ann Pharmacother. 2008 Mar;42(3):397-402. doi: 10.1345/aph.1K481. Epub 2008 Feb 19.
• Background Bijur PE, Silver W, Gallagher EJ. Reliability of the visual analog scale for measurement of acute pain. Acad Emerg Med. 2001 Dec;8(12):1153-7. doi: 10.1111/j.1553-2712.2001.tb01132.x.
• Background Burch RC, Loder S, Loder E, Smitherman TA. The prevalence and burden of migraine and severe headache in the United States: updated statistics from government health surveillance studies. Headache. 2015 Jan;55(1):21-34. doi: 10.1111/head.12482.
• Background Burch R, Rizzoli P, Loder E. The prevalence and impact of migraine and severe headache in the United States: Updated age, sex, and socioeconomic-specific estimates from government health surveys. Headache. 2021 Jan;61(1):60-68. doi: 10.1111/head.14024. Epub 2020 Dec 21.
• Background Friedman BW, Mulvey L, Esses D, Solorzano C, Paternoster J, Lipton RB, Gallagher EJ. Metoclopramide for acute migraine: a dose-finding randomized clinical trial. Ann Emerg Med. 2011 May;57(5):475-82.e1. doi: 10.1016/j.annemergmed.2010.11.023. Epub 2011 Jan 12.
• Background Motov S, Yasavolian M, Likourezos A, Pushkar I, Hossain R, Drapkin J, Cohen V, Filk N, Smith A, Huang F, Rockoff B, Homel P, Fromm C. Comparison of Intravenous Ketorolac at Three Single-Dose Regimens for Treating Acute Pain in the Emergency Department: A Randomized Controlled Trial. Ann Emerg Med. 2017 Aug;70(2):177-184. doi: 10.1016/j.annemergmed.2016.10.014. Epub 2016 Dec 16.
• Background Yeh WZ, Blizzard L, Taylor BV. What is the actual prevalence of migraine? Brain Behav. 2018 Jun;8(6):e00950. doi: 10.1002/brb3.950. Epub 2018 May 2.

Drugs

Indications