• L Reveiz-Herault, A F Cardona, E G Ospina, and P Carrillo.
• Servicio de Medicina Familiar, Instituto Nacional de Cancerología, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Bogotá, Colombia. mmreveiz@hotmail.com
• Rev Neurol. 2003 May 16; 36 (10): 907-12.

BackgroundMigraine is a common and disabling health problem among young and middle aged adults. Flunarizine have been used as a prophylactic medication in its management for more than two decades.ObjectiveThe aim of the study is to systematically review the evidence obtained from randomized controlled trials about the efficacy and security of flunarizine versus placebo for the prevention of migraine in adults.Materials And MethodsElectronic search were performed using the databases MEDLINE, EMBASE, Biosis, the Cochrane Library, Lilacs and others. Reference lists of retrieved studies, reviews and conference abstracts were used to found another articles. Additionally, the authors performed a handsearched in recognized journals related to migraine and neurological topics. Randomized, placebo controlled, double blind trials assessing the efficacy of flunarizine for preventing migraine were included. We evaluated the frequency of the attacks by comparing the mean frequency before and after the intervention for each group of treatment and then the two groups were compared. To evaluate the security of flunarizine we used included and excluded studies and open trials.ResultsNine studies were obtained but only four met the inclusion criteria. The fixed effects model reported a reduction in the frequency of attacks by using flunarizine. The monthly difference was 0.55 attacks (CI 95%= 0.215 0.895; p= 0.002). Somnolence was the most frequent adverse effect in 20.5% of the subjects (n= 1,987).ConclusionsBased on a small number of trials, flunarizine, at a daily dose of 10 mg lightly reduces the frequency of migraine attacks.

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