O206 The efficacy of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation in treating patients with chronic daily headache

• Published in: Clinical neurophysiology 2017-09, Vol.128 (9), p.e244-e244
• Main Authors: Kader, Ann Abdel, Fahmy, Ebtesam, Ahmad, Ayatullah, Labib, Amira, Elmekkawy, Leqaa
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Chronic migraine (CM); Chronic tension type headache (CTTH); Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS)
• ISSN: 1388-2457; 1872-8952
• DOI: 10.1016/j.clinph.2017.07.214

Headache is the most prevalent pain disorder, affecting around 66% of the global population. This study aimed to investigate the efficacy of high-frequency repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) over the left DLPFC in treating patients with primary chronic daily headaches (chronic tension type headache and chronic migraine). Twenty-seven patients participated in the study, divided into two groups: a study group (sixteen patients) and a control group (eleven patients). Treatment consisted of twelve high frequency (5Hz) real rTMS sessions, delivered over the left DLPFC, every other day excluding weekends, whereas sham rTMS was used for the control group. Measures of attack frequency, headache intensity and headache index were recorded before and after treatment. Patients of the study group, after real rTMS stimulation, showed a high statistically significant reduction of the measured headache parameters compared to the control group (P-value0.05) and percentage of improvement was 7.9%. Results came in agreement with most of other studies done in this field. Conclusion:High-frequency rTMS is effective in reducing chronic tension headache and chronic migraine. This finding runs with the approval of the suggested role of DLPFC in pain control. This might open opinions for new treatment strategies in tension type headache and migraine prevention.