SUMMARY
The potential advantages of eletriptan lie firstly in its lipophilicity reflected as an increased rate of absorption and Tmax compared to sumatriptan. This is manifested in a modest advantage over sumatriptan in terms of speed of onset, 2 h headache response and 2 h pain free. However, eletriptan has not yet been shown to have an advantage over the other triptans for lack of head-to head comparisons.
It does not appear to have an advantage over sumatriptan for headache recurrence.
The second advantage is the partial agonist activity at the 5-HT1B receptor, reducing the potential for cardiovascular side-effects compared to the other triptans. Although no serious cardiovascular events have yet been recognized, eletriptan should still be used with extreme caution for patients with cardiovascular risk factors.