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Primary headaches and painful spontaneous cervical artery dissection

The Journal of Headache and Pain volume 8, pages 180–184 (2007)Cite this article

Abstract

The relation between primary headaches (PH) and pain related to spontaneous cervical artery dissection (SCAD) is still unclear, as well as the progress of PH after dissection. To investigate this relation, the characteristics of pain related to SCAD and changes in PH patterns after SCAD, we evaluated 54 consecutive patients. Thirty-five (65%) had previous PH. Painful SCAD occurred in 39 (72%). Frontal and parietal localizations were significantly associated with internal carotid artery dissection (p=0.013 and p=0.010, respectively), whereas occipital and nuchal pain, with vertebral artery dissection (p=0.047 and p<0.001, respectively). Previous PH did not influence the presence of pain at SCAD onset. Twenty-six (74%) patients with PH reported improvement in PH pattern after a mean follow-up of 32 months. These results suggest that mechanisms underlying PH do not modulate dissection-related pain. Disruption of perivascular afferents may be involved in improvement of PH patterns after SCAD.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Calgary — Foothills Medical Centre, 1403, 29th Street, NW-Room #1147, T2N 2T9, Calgary, AB, Canada

    Cynthia R. Campos

  2. Department of Clinical Neurosciences-Foothills Medical Centre, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada

    Cynthia R. Campos

  3. Division of Neurology of the Hospital of Clinics of the University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil

    Cynthia R. Campos, Marcelo Calderaro, Milberto Scaff & Adriana B. Conforto

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  1. Cynthia R. Campos
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  2. Marcelo Calderaro
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  4. Adriana B. Conforto
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Open Access This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0 ), which permits any noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited.

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Campos, C.R., Calderaro, M., Scaff, M. et al. Primary headaches and painful spontaneous cervical artery dissection. J Headache Pain 8, 180–184 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10194-007-0387-6

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Keywords

The Journal of Headache and Pain

ISSN: 1129-2377

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