Prevalence Of Headaches In People With Multiple Sclerosis

Objective:Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic auto immune disease that affects the myelinated axons in the central nervous system (CNS).It can present with a large spectrum of symptoms.Headaches are commom in MS patients.Regarding the prevalence of headaches in MS patients and the relationship between them,the studies abroad have conflicting results.And in domestic,we do not have enough studies to investgate the issue.Our study aims to investgate the prevalence of headaches in MS patients and the relationship between them in domestic. Mate rial and method:We collect all the patients diagnosed with MS in our hospital from Jan.2012 to Dec.2014.Patients are strictly selected according to the Mcdonald criteria and patients with a positive NMO-Ig G are exluded.We make a questionnaire seeking information on the presence and clinical characteristics of headache, current treatments,frequency of attacks, aggravation by movement and routine physical activity.According to the information we have,we further study the relationship between headches and different MS subtypes,duration of MS and DMTs for MS.We also review the MS history to find out whether a demyelinating plaque exists in the brainstem. Result:104 out of 121cases are finally anylized.The prevalence of headaches in MS patients goes 38.5% and 16.3% for migraine 17.3% for TTH.9.6% suffer from a headache during the relapsing period.38.5% of the patients taking IFN-β complain of a de novo headache or a more frequent headache and we find patients taking IFN-Pshow higher risk for headaches (38.5%vs10.9%, P=0.008). However,there is no significant difference between the MS patients with or without a brainstem demyelinating plaque(45.6%vs32.7%,P>0.05).Conclusion:Headaches are commom in the MS patients in our area,and are surposed to be influenced by the DMTs but not the brainstem plaque or the different MS subtypes.