The efficacy of milnacipran for the treatment of patients with FM was evaluated in a phase 2, three-month, multi-center, randomized, double-blind comparative trial of the study drug and placebo. Adult patients received milnacipran once daily, milnacipran twice daily, or placebo for three months. This dose-escalation trial allowed maximum doses of milnacipran, up to 200 mg/day, to be tested. To be eligible for enrollment in the study, patients:
- had to be between 18 and 70 years of age.
- had to have a diagnosis of primary FM, based on the 1990 American College of Rheumatology (ACR) criteria.
- had to have a pain score of 10 or higher on a 20-point Gracely scale at baseline.
- had to have withdrawn from centrally active therapies commonly used to treat FM.
In addition, female participants were required to use contraception. Patients were excluded from the study if they:
were actively suicidal or psychotic.
- had a substance abuse problem.
- had any concurrent autoimmune, inflammatory, infectious, or malignant disorder; sleep apnea; or prostatic hypertrophy.
- had abnormal baseline kidney and hepatic function test results.
The study consisted of a screening and washout phase, a baseline assessment, a dose-titration phase, and a stable-dose phase. The screening and baseline phases lasted four weeks. If patients met the criteria for entering the dose-titration phase, they were randomly assigned to one of the three study arms (milnacipran twice daily or once daily or placebo). Patients were randomly assigned by blocks of eight in a ratio of 3:3:2 for twice-daily/once-daily placebo dosing. The titration phase lasted for the first four weeks of the trial.
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All patients started with 25 mg/day at week 1. Each week following week 1, personnel at the study center called patients by telephone to advise them to remain with the current dose, to double the dose, or to discontinue therapy based on tolerability. At the end of the titration period, patients could reach a maximum target dose of 200 mg/day, or they could have remained with a lower dose if tolerability was a problem. Patients then continued to take the stable dose for another eight weeks after they completed the titration phase.
A total of 125 patients were enrolled in the study between March 20, 2002, and December 10, 2002. The primary efficacy endpoint evaluated was the average daily pain score in an electronic diary, as recorded by the patient. Secondary efficacy measures included weekly pain scores, as recorded in the e-diary, and pain assessments via a Visual Analogue Scale (VAS), the Gracely Pain Scale, and the McGill Pain Questionnaire.
Both milnacipran groups had reduced daily e-diary pain scores (−3.0 ± 3.5 for twice-daily dosing and −2.2 ± 2.3 for once-daily dosing). Although reductions in daily e-diary scores were higher than those reported for placebo (−1.86 ± 3.74), neither treatment group’s results were statistically significant in reducing daily pain scores when compared with placebo (P = 0.191 and P = 0.635 for twice-daily and once-daily dosing, respectively).
Twice-daily milnacipran, however, resulted in significantly lower pain scores and intensity in all secondary efficacy evaluations (P < 0.05) and in significantly lower weekly e-diary pain scores (−3.1 ± 3.5; P = 0.025) compared with placebo (−1.14 ± 3.79). The once-daily milnacipran dose did not result in a statistically significant reduction in pain scores in any primary or secondary evaluation. These observations are most likely attributed to the half-life of milnacipran.
A further analysis was conducted to determine whether comorbid depression influenced the treatment response, because milnacipran is an approved therapy in Europe for depression. Paradoxically, non-depressed patients showed significantly better improvement with milnacipran than the depressed patients did. These data are partially skewed, because most of the depressed patients with a co-morbidity received placebo (32%), compared with patients using once-daily milnacipran (7%) and twice-daily milnacipran (16%).
No unexpected hazardous side effects occurred in the treatment phases of the study. During the trial, 14.4% of patients discontinued therapy before the study’s completion. Of the 14.4% who withdrew, 3.6% of patients were receiving placebo, 21.7% were receiving once-daily milnacipran, and 13.7% were receiving twice-daily milnacipran. Tolerability was better with the twice-daily dose, suggesting that higher peaks levels of milnacipran were associated with increased AEs. Reasons for discontinuing the study drug were attributed primarily to headache and gastrointestinal (GI) upset.
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Overall, milnacipran was effective in reducing the pain of FM, but twice-daily dosing was necessary for tolerability and efficacy.