title: Eletriptan: pharmacological differences and clinical results.
abstract: The potential advantages of eletriptan lie firstly in its lipophilicity reflected as an increased rate of absorption and Tmax compared to sumatriptan. This is manifested in a modest advantage over sumatriptan in terms of speed of onset, 2 h headache response and 2 h pain free. However, eletriptan has not yet been shown to have an advantage over the other triptans for lack of head-to head comparisons. It does not appear to have an advantage over sumatriptan for headache recurrence. The second advantage is the partial agonist activity at the 5-HT(1B) receptor, reducing the potential for cardiovascular side-effects compared to the other triptans. Although no serious cardiovascular events have yet been recognized, eletriptan should still be used with extreme caution for patients with cardiovascular risk factors.
authors.affiliation: National Hospital, Queen Square, London, UK. n.giffin@ion.ucl.ac.uk
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Giffin
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D007211:Indoles / Q000494:pharmacology* / Q000627:therapeutic use; D008881:Migraine Disorders / Q000188:drug therapy*; D011759:Pyrrolidines / Q000494:pharmacology* / Q000627:therapeutic use; D017366:Serotonin Receptor Agonists / Q000494:pharmacology* / Q000627:therapeutic use; D018170:Sumatriptan / Q000494:pharmacology* / Q000627:therapeutic use; D014363:Tryptamines
chemical_list: D007211:Indoles; D011759:Pyrrolidines; D017366:Serotonin Receptor Agonists; D014363:Tryptamines; C115647:eletriptan; D018170:Sumatriptan