A Diagnostic Sign in Migraine?

At the bedside it was noted that, after ocular fundoscopy, patients with migraine complained more often of an afterimage than did non-migraineurs. This phenomenon was then investigated in consecutive patients attending a general neurology outpatient clinic. The relative risk for the diagnosis of mig...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine 2001-06, Vol.94 (6), p.286-287
Main Author: de Silva, R N
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Adult
Afterimage
Aged
Biological and medical sciences
Child
Female
Humans
Male
Medical sciences
Middle Aged
Migraine Disorders - diagnosis
Migraine Disorders - psychology
Neurology
Ophthalmoscopy
Original
Predictive Value of Tests
Sensitivity and Specificity
Vascular diseases and vascular malformations of the nervous system
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:At the bedside it was noted that, after ocular fundoscopy, patients with migraine complained more often of an afterimage than did non-migraineurs. This phenomenon was then investigated in consecutive patients attending a general neurology outpatient clinic. The relative risk for the diagnosis of migraine in patients reporting an after-image was 2.91 (95% confidence interval 1.96 to 4.34), and the sensitivity, specificity and positive predictive value of this observation for the diagnosis of migraine were 0.63, 0.75 and 0.55 respectively. After-images were equally likely to be reported by migraineurs with and without aura, and by patients with migraine equivalents. The after-image phenomenon probably reflects the heightened sensitivity to visual stimuli of patients with migraine. Although a diagnosis of migraine is primarily established by the patient's history, the presence of an afterimage following ocular fundoscopy may support this diagnosis.
ISSN:0141-0768
1758-1095
DOI:10.1177/014107680109400608