Patients with migraine prefer zolmitriptan orally disintegrating tablet to sumatriptan conventional oral tablet.

The Zolmitriptan Evaluation versus Sumatriptan Trial (ZEST) assessed patient preference for 2.5 mg zolmitriptan orally disintegrating tablet (ODT) or 50 mg sumatriptan conventional tablet in 218 patients with significant migraine disability. Significantly more patients preferred zolmitriptan ODT to sumatriptan conventional tablet (60.1% vs 39.9%; p = 0.0130). In terms of efficacy, significantly more patients considered zolmitriptan ODT to be an effective migraine treatment than sumatriptan conventional tablet (77% vs 63%; p = 0.0063). When asked about specific formulation attributes, significantly more patients selected zolmitriptan ODT as the least disruptive therapy (83.6% vs 16.4%), the easiest to take (85.5% vs 14.5%), the most convenient to take (86.1% vs 13.9%), and the one which enabled them to maintain an active lifestyle (65.5% vs 34.5%), compared with the sumatriptan conventional tablet (all comparisons p < 0.001). Zolmitriptan ODT is a convenient and beneficial alternative to conventional tablets and is preferred to sumatriptan conventional tablets by migraineurs.