Authors: M D Ferrari P J Goadsby R B Lipton D W Dodick F M Cutrer D McCrory P Williams
Publish Date: 2005/03/11
Volume: 252, Issue: 9, Pages: 1026-1032
Abstract
The physician treating patients with migraine is now able to choose from among seven triptans–almotriptan eletriptan frovatriptan naratriptan rizatriptan sumatriptan and zolmitriptan These differ to greater or lesser degrees on a range of clinical attributes important for treatment selectionIn an example application summary data from a recent meta–analysis of 53 published and unpublished placebo–controlled trials of the oral triptans were combined in TOPSIS models with computer–generated attribute importance weights representing the entire range of possible values That is the relative performance of the triptans was explored across all logically possible combinations of relative importance of the treatment attributes available from the meta–analysis and uncertainty was assessed based on the confidence intervals from the meta–analysisWhen compared across the entire range of values for relative attribute importance almotriptan eletriptan and rizatriptan were more similar to a hypothetical ideal triptan and were more likely to appear in the top three closest to the hypothetical ideal than were naratriptan sumatriptan and zolmitriptan
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