Frequency of cranio-autonomic symptoms in the patients of migraine presenting in an outpatient department of dow university hospital: A cross-sectional study

Abstract

Objectives. Migraine is a prevalent debilitating neurological disorder manifested by frequent episodes of pounding headache. Cranial autonomic symptoms are frequently reported in patients of trigeminal autonomic cephalgias, but various studies also documented these cranio-autonomic symptoms in migraine patients as well. The primary ob-jective of our study is to evaluate the prevalence of cranio-autonomic symptoms (CAS) amongst the patients suffering from migraines. Material and methods. This study was conducted as a descriptive, cross-sectional survey involving patients at-tending the neurology clinic at Dow University Hospital. 132 patients met the inclusion criteria (according to ICHD-III) and were assessed for the frequency of cranio-autonomic symptoms. Outcomes. The mean age recorded was 26.37 ± 6.31 years, while the mean duration of diagnosis was 23.54 ± 16.52 months. The frequency of cranio-autonomic symptoms was observed among 55% of the patients suffering from migraines in our study. The prominent symptom observed was lacrimation (56%), followed by nasal conges-tion (31%) and rhinorrhea (28%). The least prevalent symptom was ptosis (4%). Lacrimation was found more likely to be associated with the male gender (p = 0.096), while forehead/ facial sweating was found more prevalent in females (p = 0.162). The ciliary injection was frequent in conjunction with unilateral rather than a bilateral headache in the migraine patients (p= 0.055), while lacrimation was the most common symptom in the 21-30 years of age group followed by ciliary injection which was exclusively conspicuous in the same age category (p = 0.020). Conclusions. Cranio-autonomic symptoms were detected prevailing in our study population, and may present as a confounding factor in physician’s daily practice to diagnose migraine.