Gender bias in clinical trials of biological agents for migraine: A systematic review

Abstract

Migraine is considered one of the most disabling diseases. Currently, there are few studies on clinical migraine treatment based on sex-related differences, despite the important role of sex in migraine. Our aim was to evaluate gender bias in published clinical trials on monoclonal antibodies (erenumab, galcanezumab, fremanezumab and eptinezumab). We performed a systematic review of controlled clinical trials of erenumab, galcanezumab, fremanezumab and eptinezumab, searching the PubMed/MEDLINE database for articles published before December 2021. The search identified 760 articles, 25 of which met the inclusion criteria. Of all the patients included in these trials, 85.1% were women. Only one study had female lead authors. Two of the 25 studies included a sex-based analysis of the primary endpoint. None of the articles discussed the results separately for men and for women. The proportion of men recruited in trials is scarce and more studies are needed to guarantee the safety and tolerability of monoclonal antibodies used in male migraine. As observed in our study, despite the high number of women recruited, only 2 studies analysed the results separately by sex. Thus, a potential risk of gender bias was found in these clinical trials.