Safety in the acute management of migraine during pregnancy: a systematic review

Abstract

Background. Migraine is three times more frequent in females than males and is modulated by changes in ovarian hormones throughout different stages of a female’s life; migraine thus begins with the onset of menstruation, improves during the second and third trimester of pregnancy and a remission may sometimes be brought about during menopause. Objetive.Evaluating the safety of acute management of migraine during pregnancy. Materials and methods. A systematic review was made of the literature concerning observational analytical studies. A systematic search and selection was made of all analytical studies (cohort studies and cases and controls studies) regarding the acute management of migraine during pregnancy published between January 1966 and September 2007. The search covered the COCHRANE, MEDLINE, EMBASE and LILACS databases. Data were extracted using the PECOT strategy bearing in mind the intervention strategy, methodological quality and presence of greater or lesser congenital malformations related to the different medicaments used for the acute management of migraine. Results. A total of 389 references were obtained of which 7 articles were selected by title and summary. Four articles complied with the inclusion criteria. No articles were found describing the risk of congenital malformations before being exposed to acetaminophen, anti-inflammatory agents non-steroidal, ergot alkaloids and/or opioids; just articles related to tryptans (specifically sumatryptan) were found. Conclusions. Only data concerning the risk of congenital malformations arising from sumatryptan use was found regarding all the medicaments used for acute migraine attack, this being insufficient as the information was really poor and the studies had limitations, thereby making it difficult to make statements concerning their safety during pregnancy.