The relationship between migraine headache and asthma features

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13760- 017- 0764- 0

Abstract-Summary Migraine and asthma are comorbid chronic disorders with episodic attacks thought to involve inflammatory and neurological mechanisms.

The objective of the present study is to investigate the relationship of asthma features between the asthma patients with migraine and those without migraine headache.

Physician-diagnosed asthma patients aged 18 years and above were included. Demographic data, pulmonary function test and treatment of asthma were

recorded.

121 asthma patients were included in this study. No statistically significant difference was found between asthma group and

asthma with migraine groups in terms of pulmonary function test parameters.

The mean ACT score in asthma with migraine patients group was significantly

lower than the asthma groups.

Morever, in the group asthma with migraine, a negative significant correlations

were found between ACT scores with VAS scores.

This study demonstrates that migraine headache may be associated with poor

asthma control.

Extended: Migraine and asthma are common chronic medical disorders that have

episodic exacerbations and significant illness-related disability.

Migraine and asthma are more prevalent in women than men and more prevalent

in younger adults who have low socioeconomic status [499].

No statistically significant difference was found between asthma group and asthma with migraine groups in terms of diagnosis duration asthma, hospitalization, hay fever, all treatments, pulmonary function test parameters and ACQ (p = 0.770, p = 0.392, p = 0.210, p > 0.05, p > 0.05, p = 0.474, respectively).

Introduction Migraine is a common and disabling neurological disorder characterized by epi- sodic unilateral headache attacks that are often accompanied by photophobia, nau- sea and vomiting, which affects approximately 10–15% of the general population [500].

Migraine and asthma are common chronic medical disorders that have episodic

exacerbations and significant illness-related disability.

Migraine and asthma are more prevalent in women than men and more prevalent

in younger adults who have low socioeconomic status [499]. There has been relationship between asthma and migraine. Cross-sectional studies have found that asthma is 1.1–1.6 times more prevalent

in persons with migraine [339, 501].

2.3 Comorbidities

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Aamodt and others found that the prevalence of asthma was strongly associated with the selfreported frequency of migraine attacks with odds ratios of 1.6, 2.2, and 2.9 in those in the low, moderate, and high frequency categories (e.g., low <7 days/ month; moderate 7–14 days/month; high >14 days/month) [339].

Methods Asthma diagnosis was made according to the American Thoracic Society criteria with symptoms of episodic wheezing, cough and shortness of breath responding to bronchodilators and reversible airflow obstruction documented in at least one previ- ous pulmonary function test [502].

The exclusion criteria for the patients: acute asthma attacks, hospitalized or dis- charged from the hospital in the previous 4 weeks, other pulmonary diseases history such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, interstitial lung disease, or severe systemic diseases such as severe renal disorders, severe cardiovascular diseases, uncontrolled hypertension, malignensy, subjects using of any medication for a psy- chiatric disorder.

The Kruskal–Wallis test was used to compare more than two independent groups

for cases with non-normal distributed variables.

In cases where the Kruskal–Wallis test yielded a statistical significance, a post hoc analysis was performed to identify the groups that showed differences by using a Bonferroni-corrected Mann–Whitney U test.

Results The mean ACT score in asthma with migraine patients group was significantly lower than the asthma groups (p = 0.035).

Based on ACT score, the percent of partially controlled patients were signifi- cantly lower in asthma with migraine group than asthma group (p = 0.038) Morever the percent of uncontrelled patients were significantly higher in asthma with migraine group than asthma group (p = 0.034).

In asthma patients with migraine headache the mean migraine diagnosis was 7.1 ± 5.7 year, mean duration of headache attacks were 15.1 ± 4.3 h, mean frequency of attacks were 4.3 ± 3.8/months, and mean severity of attacks was 7.8 ± 1.2 on a VAS score.

In the group asthma with migraine, a negative significant correlations were found

between ACT scores with VAS scores (r = −0.487, p = 0.005). Discussion Present study indicated that the patients with asthma having migraine headache had significantly lower scores of ACT compared with those without migraine.

A large questionnaire-based study by Aamodt and others reported that both migraine and nonmigrainous headaches were approximately 1.5-fold more likely in people with asthma than in those without asthma [339].

The rate of migraine in patients with asthma were higher than in the normal

population.

Previous studies have shown there is significant correlations between ACT score

and clinical features of asthma [503, 504].

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2 Mechanisms

The mean ACT score in asthma with migraine patients group was significantly

lower than the asthma groups.

According to our knowledge this is the first study investigate the clinical rela-

tionship between the asthma patient with migrain and those without migraine.

The results of this study revealed that migraine headache may be associated with

poor asthma control.

Acknowledgement A machine generated summary based on the work of Dirican, Nigar; Demirci, Seden; Cakir, Munire. 2017 in Acta Neurologica Belgica.

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