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Predictors of acute treatment response among patients with cluster headache
Markus Schürks1, Dieter Rosskopf, Janete de Jesus
1Department of Neurology, University of Duisberg-Essen, Hufelandstrasse 55, 45122 Essen, Germany.
Background:
Oxygen and triptans are drugs of first choice to abort cluster headache attacks. However, clinical predictors of treatment response are unavailable.
Objective:
We aimed to identify predictors of acute treatment response among patients with cluster headache.
Methods:
We investigated 246 cluster headache patients with available information on personal, headache, and lifestyle characteristics as well as effectiveness of acute medication use. We used logistic regression models to identify potential predictors of triptan and oxygen response.
Results:
Triptans were effective in 137 of the 191 users and oxygen in 134 of the 175 users. We only identified increasing age (OR 0.96, 95% CI 0.93-0.99; P= .013) as a negative predictor for triptan response, while nausea/vomiting (OR 0.41, 95% CI 0.18-0.91; P= .029) and restlessness (OR 0.09, 95% CI 0.01-0.66; P= .019) were negative predictors of oxygen response.
Conclusions:
Few clinical features seem to predict treatment nonresponse in cluster headache. More refined studies aiming at physiological and genetic characteristics seem promising in the future.
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