oa Selected Abstracts From Other Journals

Context: There is a paucity of effective, well-tolerated drugs available for migraine prophylaxis.

Objective: To determine whether treatment with the angiotensin II receptor blocker candesartan is effective as a migraine-prophylactic drug.

Design and Setting: Randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled crossover study performed in a Norwegian neurological outpatient clinic from January 2001 to February 2002.

Patient: Sixty patients aged 18 to 65 years with 2 to 6 migraine attacks per month were recruited mainly from newspaper advertisements.

Interventions: A placebo run-in period of 4 weeks was followed by two 12-week treatment periods separated by 4 weeks of placebo washout. Thirty patients were randomly assigned to receive one 16-mg candesartan cilexetil tablet daily in the first treatment period followed by 1 placebo tablet daily in the second period. The remaining 30 received placebo followed by candesartan.