REACTIVITY OF THE CEREBRAL HEMODYNAMICS IN PATIENTS WITH TENSION-TYPE HEADACHE

Abstract

Tension-type headache is very common, with a lifetime prevalence in the general population ranging in different studies between 30% and 78%.  The percentage of the adult population with an active headache disorder is 47% for headache in general, 10% for migraine, 38% for tension-type headache, and 3% for chronic headache that lasts for more than 15 days per month.  Primary tension-type headaches occur in approximately 40% of the adult population worldwide. Central sensitization caused by prolonged nociceptive input from muscles is considered to play an important role for chronification of tension-type headache [1-3].

Directly and indirectly chronic tension-type headache (CTTH) causes high costs and considerable loss of quality of life. The pain rating of the electrical stimuli and the pain score of the hypertonic saline infusion were significantly higher in CTTH patients than in healthy volunteers. The primary endpoint was the relative change of the blink reflex integral immediately after hypertonic saline infusion. It was significantly smaller in CTTH patients on the contralateral side compared to healthy volunteers, while there was no significant difference on the ipsilateral side [4,5].