Epicrania fugax with backward radiation: clinical characteristics of nine new cases

The Journal of Headache and Pain

Original

Sara Miranda¹  Patricia Mulero¹  María L. Peñas¹  Ángel L. Guerrero¹  Elisa Cortijo¹  María Pedraza¹  Sonia Herrero-Velázquez¹  Rosa Fernández¹  Esther Rojo¹ 

[1] Department of Neurology, Hospital Clínico Universitario, Avda Ramón y Cajal 3, 47005, Valladolid, Spain;

关键词: Backward radiation;    Epicrania;    Epicrania fugax;    Stabbing headache;    SUNA;    SUNCT;   

DOI  :  10.1007/s10194-011-0353-1

 received in 2011-03-21, accepted in 2011-05-09,  发布年份 2011

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

Epicrania fugax (EF) is a novel syndrome, described as a paroxysmal and brief head pain, starting in posterior cranial regions and rapidly spreading forward ipsilateral eye, nose or forehead. Two patients with comparable clinical features stemming from frontal scalp to ipsilateral posterior regions have been recently described and proposed as backward radiation epicrania fugax (BREF). We report a new series of nine BREF and compare their clinical characteristics with 18 forward radiation EF (FREF). Since first description of BREF in February 2010 we have assessed nine patients (four males, five females) with this clinical picture at an outpatient headache office in a Tertiary Hospital. Comparison is established with 18 FREF patients (6 males, 12 females), attended since the publication of first series of EF in March 2008. We found no differences between BREF and FREF, respectively, in age at onset (43.4 ± 13.1 vs. 42.5 ± 17.7 years), female/male ratio (5/4 vs. 12/6), pain intensity (6.9 ± 2.1 vs. 6.8 ± 2.1 in a 0–10 visual analogical scale), duration (7.1 ± 4.9 vs. 5.7 ± 4.3 s) and frequency of episodes per day (7 ± 8.4 vs. 9.9 ± 15.4). Patients in BREF group presented less frequently interictal pain in stemming point (22.2 vs. 55.5%) and accompanying autonomic signs (33.3 vs. 55.5%), but without statistical significance in both the cases. This series reinforces the proposal of EF as a new headache variant or a new headache syndrome. Clinical picture of brief pain paroxysms starting in the anterior scalp and radiating backwards does not fit known headaches or neuralgias and might correspond to a reverse variant of EF, clinical characteristics of which are comparable to FREF.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© The Author(s) 2011