Aims and objectives
It is well known that migraines are associated with brain white matter hyperintensities (WMH) in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies (1-16).
Migraines are often debilitating headaches,
which might cause white matter changes,
and to a lesser degree,
silent posterior vascular territory infarcts (8,10).
However,
several studies reported supratentorial,
but not infratentorial,
WMH in migraineurs,
probably due to differences in patient selection (9).
A lot of studies attempted to analyze the underlying pathophysiology of migraines (11-16) suggesting several causes of WMH in migraine,
such as oligemia...
Methods and materials
Fifty-two (39 females,
13 males) migraineurs and 16 gender- and age-matched,
asymptomatic,
control subjects were recruited in this study.
Patients with small vessel disease were excluded.
Subjects were scanned in a 3T magnet Philips Achieva (Philips Healthcare,
Best,
the Netherlands) with a comprehensive brain protocol comprising of the following pulse sequences: FLAIR,
T2w/TSE,
SWI and T1w/TSE in the axial plane,
T2w/TSE in the sagittal plane,
and MR venography with 3D phase contrast and 2D phase contrast for CSF flow quantification.
The acquisition parameters for aqueductal...
Results
All WMH identified in the current study involved the subcortical and deep white matter of the supratentorial regions,
while none infratentorial WMH were detected (Tables 1 & 2).
WMH (Fig.
7 & 8) were found in 15/30 (50%) of migraineurs with SV>50 μl,
in 5/22 (22.7%) of migraineurs with SV<50 μl and in 5/16 (32%) of normal controls.
SV in patients (80.4±43.9 μl) was significantly higher (p<0.05) than in controls (64.4±31.3 μl).
All controls with WMH had SV>50 μl and no WMH were detected in...
Conclusion
WMH seem to be associated with relatively higher SV values in both migraineurs and controls.
This finding indicates that WMH may be associated with relatively high SV values and thus further research is warranted.
The quantitative CSF flow study revealed that migraineurs demonstrate higher SV compared to asymptomatic controls.
There was also higher prevalence of type III VRS,
ALV and minimal to mild sinusitis in migraineurs compared to controls.
The pituitary height was found to be higher in migraineurs than in control subjects; this finding...
Personal information
Eleni Eracleous1,
Kostas Voulgaris1,
Stelios Demetriou1, Vasilis Vasiliou2, Maria Karekla2,
Ioannis Seimenis3
1) Medical Diagnostic Center of Ayios Therissos,
Nicosia,
Cyprus
[email protected]
2) Department of Psychology,
University of Cyprus,
Nicosia,
Cyprus
3) Medical Physics Laboratory,
Medical School,
Democritus University of Thrace,
Alexandroupolis,
Greece
References
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Kern RZ.
Migraine is associated with magnetic resonance imaging white matter abnormalities: a meta-analysis.Arch Neurol.2004;61:1366–1368.
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van Buchem MA,
Hofman PA,
et al.Migraine as a risk factor for subclinical brain lesions.JAMA2004;291:427–434
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Mohamed S,
Maillard P,
et al.Headache,
migraine,
and structural brain lesions and function: population based epidemiology of vascular ageing-MRI study.BMJ2011;342:c7357.
4)Longstreth WT,
Jr,
Manolio TA,
Arnold A,
et al.Clinical correlates of white matter findings on cranial magnetic resonance imaging of 3301 elderly people: the Cardiovascular Health Study.Stroke1996;27:1274–1282
5)...