OBJECTIVES: To describe treatment patterns and to characterize the patients with migraine followed in headache specialized centers in Portugal.

METHODS: BECOME study is a non-interventional study conducted across 17 European countries and Israel between Nov2017-Aug2018 entailing Part-1 (cumulative hospital data) and Part-2 (patient-level data). Part 2 of the study included patients aged 18 to 65 years, attending headache centers as outpatients or inpatients, with a migraine diagnosis, >=4 monthly migraine days (MMD) and evidence of >=1 prophylactic treatment failure (TF) in the previous 5 years. Results from the Portuguese sample included in Part 2 are reported.

RESULTS: Six Portuguese sites included a total of 103 patients in part 2: 99% females, mean age of 43.8 (SD=11.4), mean number of 10.4 MMD (SD=6.1), 40% TF1, 29% TF2 and 31% TF3+. Average age at diagnosis was 30.5 years. Time between first symptoms and diagnosis was 11.7 years. Mean duration of disease was 15.9 years. About 26% had diagnosis of medication overuse headache. The majority (87.4%) of patients were using acute medication for migraine (average of 1.7 drugs). About 70% of patients were taking analgesics (30% ibuprofen, 26% paracetamol) and 50% triptans (rapid onset 46%, low onset 4%). Medication overuse occurred with 20% of the previous acute treatments. Besides acute medication, 67% of the patients were taking prophylactic treatment (average, 1.6 drugs; 37.9% in monotherapy and 62.1% in combination): 29% were on antidepressants (of whom, 57% in amitriptiline), 29% on antiepileptics (of whom, 63% in topiramate), 25% on betablockers (all in propanolol) and 9% on botulinum toxin. Regarding previous prophylactic treatments, 59% were stopped due to efficacy failure, 32% due to lack of tolerability and 9% due to other failure/other reasons.

CONCLUSIONS: These results are important to understand the status quo of the management of migraine in headache specialized centers in Portugal.