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Caffeine as an adjuvant to ibuprofen in treating childhood headaches
Joseph M Dooley1, Kevin E Gordon, Ellen P Wood
1Pediatric Neurology Division, Dalhousie University and the IWK Health Centre, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. jdooley@dal.ca
Abstract:
In adults, caffeine has been shown to enhance the effectiveness of most analgesics, including ibuprofen. This double-blind cross-over pilot study evaluated the effect of ibuprofen and caffeine compared with ibuprofen and placebo in 12 children with headaches. Patients completed diaries for both headaches. Outcome measures included a five-faces severity scale, a measure of clinical disability, and a scale of pain severity. Comparison of the cumulative response scores revealed a trend toward a greater response to ibuprofen-caffeine treatment of headaches (P = 0.14, P = 0.09, and P = 0.07 for the three measures, respectively). Further larger studies are needed to confirm this effect and to identify potential responders.
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