Investigation of the Association between Headache Type, Frequency, and Clinical and Radiological Findings in Patients with Multiple Sclerosis.

AIM

In this study, we aimed to investigate the prevalence of primary headaches in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS), to determine the type of headache according to the criteria of International Headache Society and to investigate the relationship between primary headache type and MS subtype, and the relationship between the localization of plaques in the brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) with MS clinic.

METHODS

In this study, we include the patients diagnosed with MS according to the Mc Donald criteria and functional loss determined with Expanded Disability Status Scale (EDSS). We include the patients who were questioned about headache characteristics in detail and the patients who have MRI previously. MRI evaluations of plaque localization of the patients were classified retrospectively.

FINDINGS

Headache in 54.4% of 320 patients participated in the study are available (23.8% tension-type headache (TTH), 30.6% migraine). When we look at the first three initial symptoms of MS patients, the patients who have polysymptomatic symptoms at the beginning are 25.3%, those with motor symptoms are 23.1%, and patients with optical symptoms are 19.7%. The mean EDSS was 2.6 ± 1.9. When we look the lesion localization, at most pericallosal lesions are present. Mean disease duration was 9.9 years in patients with TTH and 4.5 years in patients with migraine. The difference was statistically significant (P < 0.05). The mean EDSS score was 4.7 in patients with TTH and 1.8 in patients with migraine, and the difference was statistically significant (P < 0.001). The average number of lesions in the brain was 22.07 in patients with TTH and 15.79 in patients with migraine. The difference was statistically significant (P < 0.001).

RESULTS

In this study, the frequency of headache in MS patients was found to be greater than the general population and we found a higher incidence of migraine-type headache in these patients. We observed that the tension type of headache is more frequent in MS patients with higher ages, longer disease duration, more plaque numbers, and high EDSS scores.