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Relationship between oral surgical and endodontic procedures and episodic cluster headache
M Peñarrocha1, A Bandrés, M A Peñarrocha
1Valencia University Dental School, Spain. penarroc@uv.es
Objective:
We sought to evaluate the possible relationship between oral surgery and endodontic procedures and the subsequent appearance of cluster headache (CH) in 54 patients.
Study Design:
This study included 54 patients diagnosed and treated for episodic CH. The characteristics of pain, the extractions, and the endodontic procedures performed in the same or a contralateral quadrant were recorded and analyzed by using the chi-square test.
Results:
Prior tooth extraction or endodontics had been performed in the pain-affected quadrant in 58% of cases and in the contralateral quadrant in 33%. The differences between quadrants were statistically significant. After the onset of pain, extractions were performed in the affected quadrant in 44% of patients.
Conclusions:
Although the appearance of pain after dental extraction could suggest a relationship between damage to the nerve supply and the development of CH, the possibility that dental extraction and endodontics may have been performed in response to CH-related pain must also be taken into account. With respect to the differential diagnosis of pain, it is easy for CH to be misdiagnosed as dental pulp pain.