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Query: UMLS:C0018681 (headache)
 56,091 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Migraine is one of the most common neurological disorders and one of the most frequent primary headaches. It imposes a significant burden on the affected individuals, society and health care system. As the etiology and pathophysiology of migraine are not well understood, treatment is largely symptomatic. Patent foramen ovale is a remnant of a fetal circulation and is highly prevalent in the general population. Its presence was linked to several disorders including migraine. The aim of this review was to search in the available data the answer to the question whether the link between migraine and patent foramen ovale is coincidental or whether they represent a pathophysiological entity.
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PMID:Migraine and patent foramen ovale: A residual coincidence or a pathophysiological intrigue? 1668 20

When a patient with migraine has a stroke, all other causes of stroke should be ruled out before the stroke is attributed to migraine. Migraine mimics that present with headaches and stroke, including arteriovenous malformation and cervical carotid artery dissection, should be considered. Patent foramen ovale is a risk factor for both migraine and stroke and should be ruled out with transesophageal echocardiography. A patient with migraine with aura with persistent focal neurologic deficits in the distribution of the typical aura can be diagnosed with migrainous stroke. Patients with migraine with aura with persistent focal neurologic deficits can be treated pharmacologically with intravenous verapamil or magnesium sulfate to relieve the symptoms in familial hemiplegic migraine and sporadic hemiplegic migraine. Prophylactic treatment should be administered to patients with frequent attacks of migraine with aura to prevent recurrence. Oral verapamil is recommended for patients with familial hemiplegic migraine and may be effective in patients with sporadic hemiplegic migraine. Endovascular closure of patent foramen ovale has been reported to prevent recurrence of migraine with aura. The role of patent foramen ovale closure remains controversial pending completion of controlled randomized trials.
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PMID:Interactions between migraine and stroke. 1703 72

Patent foramen ovale (PFO) has been implicated in the pathogenesis of cryptogenic stroke, arterial desaturation, decompression illness, and migraine headache (MH). This study evaluated the safety of percutaneous transcatheter PFO closure in patients with cryptogenic stroke, transient ischemic attack, or arterial desaturation. Additionally, symptomatic reduction in MH was determined after interatrial shunt closure. Of the 252 patients referred to the University of California, Los Angeles, with PFO, 131 underwent closure of the interatrial communication with a CardioSEAL (n = 30) or Amplatzer (n = 101) device. PFO morphology was evaluated with transesophageal echocardiography. Follow-up was conducted at 1 to 2 months with echocardiography, with clinical assessment annually thereafter. At an average follow-up of 30 months, there was no recurrence of any thromboembolic event (transient ischemic attack, stroke, or peripheral). There was a reduction in MH, defined as the complete resolution of headache or a >50% reduction in the number of headache days, in 85% of patients after PFO closure. Temporary problems after device implantation, including chest discomfort and palpitations, were reported in 23% of patients and occurred more frequently in patients with nickel hypersensitivity (p <0.05). In conclusion, transcatheter PFO closure is an effective and safe therapeutic modality in the prevention of thromboembolic events and MH associated with interatrial shunting in patients who present with cryptogenic stroke. Pending randomized, controlled trials are necessary to determine if this invasive approach is preferable to medical therapy for the prevention of recurrent stroke or as primary treatment for patients with MH.
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PMID:Five-year experience with percutaneous closure of patent foramen ovale. 1747 65

Migraine with aura (MA) is associated with an increased risk of ischemic stroke, especially in young women with vascular risk factors (smoke, contraceptive pill). Patent foramen ovale (PFO) has also been associated with MA. We describe a 41-year-old man, in good health, with MA since 16, familiar history of diabetes, heavy smoker (30 cigarettes/day). Frequency (1-2 attacks/year) and clinical features of migraine have been unchanged since the onset. A few days before our examination he suffered a typical migraine attack. In the following hours, however, the headache became more and more throbbing and the aura symptoms (regressed as usual in 30 min) reappeared and persisted, so he went to an Emergency Department. The CT-scan (without contrast) was normal. The following days he had visual disturbances and spatial disorientation. We found a normal neurological examination and fundus oculi. He referred persisting visual troubles. We prescribed MR + angioMR which confirmed a migrainous infarction and ruled out others pathological conditions. Further tests found out dyslipidemia, hyperhomocysteinemia, impaired glucose tolerance. Transcranial Doppler showed right to left shunting. We also prescribed the screening tests for vasculitis (normal). In our opinion this case highlights the relevance of vascular risk factors in MA complications also in male subjects.
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PMID:Migrainous infarction: association with vascular risk factors in a male subject. 1941 47

Patent foramen ovale (PFO) appears to be associated with migraine with aura (MA), probably through cardiac shunting. PFOs may also be comorbid with cryptogenic strokes. Although multiple open-label, retrospective, and case-controlled studies have noted sometimes dramatic reductions of MA after PFO closure, the only prospective sham-controlled study of PFO closure for MA, MIST, was negative for all primary and secondary measures of migraine improvement. MIST did demonstrate an association between MA and severe PFO shunts prospectively. Difficulty with recruitment closed the MIST II and ESCAPE trials; the PREMIUM and PRIMA randomized controlled trials are ongoing at the time of this writing.
Curr Pain Headache Rep 2009 Jun
PMID:Patent foramen ovale and migraine: association, causation, and implications of clinical trials. 1945 83

Patent foramen ovale (PFO), a relatively common abnormality in adults, has been associated with migraine. Few studies also linked PFO with cluster headache (CH). To verify whether right-to-left shunt (RLS) is related to headaches other than migraine and CH, we used transcranial Doppler following microbubbles injection to detect shunts in 24 CH, 7 paroxysmal hemicrania (PH), one SUNCT, two hemicrania continua (HC) patients; and 34 matched controls. RLS was significantly more frequent in CH than in controls (54% vs. 25%, p=0.03), particularly above the age of 50. In the HC+PH+SUNCT group, RLS was found in 6 patients and in 2 controls (p=0.08). Smoking as well as the Epworth Sleepiness Scale correlated significantly with CH, smoking being more frequent in patients with RLS. PFO may be non-specifically related to trigeminal autonomic cephalalgias and HC. The headache phenotype in PFO patients probably depends on individual susceptibility to circulating trigger factors.
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PMID:Patent foramen ovale in trigeminal autonomic cephalalgias and hemicrania continua: a non-specific pathophysiological occurrence? 2073 Mar 22

Secondary headache is one of the most common side effect during oral contraceptive (OC) treatment and it leads many patients to stop the therapy. Patent foramen ovale (PFO) is an interatrial communication that spontaneously closes at birth in about 75% of the population. However, in the rest of adults PFO maintains a direct communication between the right and left side of circulation. In these patients PFO is a tunnel-like structure that could allow a blood clot to pass from the right to the left side of circulation, thus can cause paradoxical embolization. Although an increased frequency of PFO in patients with migraine was already reported, the relationship between PFO and migraine remains uncertain. In patients with migraine, the prevalence of moderate or large PFO is 35% and seems not associated with the presence of aura or the frequency of headache. Basing on these assumptions, we hypothesize that asymptomatic PFO could play a role in secondary headache due to OC. The procoagulant effect of OC improves the production of microemboli that through the POF could pass from the right to the left atrium and than to the brain, where they could be responsible of secondary headache. If our hypothesis would be confirmed in future studies, it would be possible to identify high-risk patients for developing OC-induced headache and other cerebrovascular major diseases through transcranial Doppler and transesophageal echocardiography. This scenario may radically change the management of reproductive-age woman who have to undergo OC therapy for contraception or other medical conditions.
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PMID:Is oral contraceptive-induced headache dependent on patent foramen ovale? Clinical dynamics, evidence-based hypothesis and possible patient-oriented management. 2751 9