Intravenous tyramine response in migraine before and during treatment with indoramin

Abstract

We studied the response of 31 migraine sufferers (20 women, 11 men) to intravenous tyramine (the tyraminedose/pressor response test). Patients were treated either with placebo tablets or indoramin, an alpha-adrenergic blocking agent, in a double-blind crossover trial. We found that patients with migraine required significantly less tyramine to increase their systolic blood pressure by 30 mm Hg when compared with matched controls. Indoramin significantly increased the amount of tyramine needed to raise the systolic blood pressure among migraine sufferers and reduced the incidence of post-tyramine migraine from 46% while patients were on placebo tablets to 8% when they were receiving indoramin. There was no association between tyramine sensitivity and a history of premenstrual or dietary migraine, nor was there a significant difference in the incidence of post-tyramine migraine between men and women. We conclude that the intravenous tyramine test may be valuable in assessing migraine sufferers who will respond to an alpha-advenergic blocking agent such as indoramin. © 1977, British Medical Journal Publishing Group. All rights reserved.