Short lasting activity-related headaches with sudden onset in children: a case-based reasoning on classification and diagnosis

The Journal of Headache and Pain

Short Report

Rodica Mardari¹  Debora De Carlo²  Luca Bartolini²  Michela Gatta²  Luca De Palma²  Margherita Nosadini²  Barbara Bolzonella²  Stefano Sartori²  Pier Antonio Battistella²  Irene Toldo² 

[1] Institute of Neuroradiology, Padua Hospital, Padua, Italy;Juvenile Headache Centre, Department of Woman and Child Health, University of Padua, Via Giustiniani, 3, 35128, Padova, Italy;

关键词: Children;    Cough headache;    Exertional headache;    Secondary headaches;    Chiari 1 malformation;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1129-2377-14-3

 received in 2012-11-16, accepted in 2013-01-14,  发布年份 2013

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundShort lasting headaches related to activity or cough are rare, particularly in childhood, and can be difficult to diagnose, especially in young children who are not able to describe their symptoms. In the literature there are few data on this topic in adults and the paediatric cases reported are even more rare.FindingsWe present the clinical history of a 7-year-old child and a 3-year-old child both diagnosed as having activity-related headaches, characterized by sudden onset of short lasting (few seconds) attacks, that were triggered by cough or exercise. There were no accompanying symptoms and the neurological examination was normal in both cases. Brain magnetic resonance imaging showed, in the first case, a cerebellar pilocytic astrocytoma and, in the second case, a Chiari 1 malformation. Both cases received an early diagnosis, were surgically treated and had a good prognosis at follow-up.ConclusionsWhen headache has a recent onset, it presents suddenly, and it is triggered by strain, even with normal neurological examination, neuroimaging is mandatory in order to exclude secondary headaches, especially in children.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© Toldo et al.; licensee Springer. 2013. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.