Management and treatment of headaches based on neuroradiological findings

Abstract

Headache is one of the common complications of patients referring to treatment centers. Application of different neuroimaging methods in patients with headache is still controversial. The present study aims at determining role of neuroimaging in diagnosis and management of patients suffering from headache. This retrospective study was conducted on medical files of 500 patients with headache referring to neurology clinics considering age, gender, type of headache and role of imaging methods in their management and treatment. In this study, 91.6 and 8.4% of the referrals respectively suffered from non-organic (primary) and organic causes of headache. CT-scan was used to examine all patients with secondary headache and 70 subjects suffering primary headache, out of 458 patients. According to CT-scan findings, there were 25 cases of brain tumor, 9 cases of subarachnoid hemorrhage, 4 cases of aneurysm, 3 cases of subdural hematoma and one case of cerebral hydatid cyst in patients with secondary headache. MRI and angiography were requested in 12 and 2 cases, respectively. It seems neuroimaging should be requested for patients with abnormal neural findings or changes in headache quality and severity and increase of intracranial pressure.