[Morphological studies of extracranial arteries in patients with migraine]

Migraine is a prevalent syndrome, clinically, however, only few pathological materials about this item were available. Since 1980, partial section of extracranial arteries has been performed in patients with intractable migraine, and the cure rate was 91 percent in 46 cases in which 62 arteries were examined pathologically. All of the cases showed pathological findings of fibromuscular dysplasia (FMD). It was considered that FMD is the morphological basis of migraine. The causes of FMD in extracranial arteries may be related with physical damage of vessel wall due to repeated dilation.