Coexistence of contralateral cluster headache and probable paroxysmal hemicrania: a case report

The trigeminal autonomic cephalagias (TACs) are short-lasting unilateral headaches associated with autonomic features. Even if coexistence of different ipsilateral TACs in the same patient has been previously reported in few papers, the simultaneous occurrence of contralateral TACs is not described previously.

A 50 years old working man complained, at the end of his cluster period, a new TAC, fitting the criteria for probable paroxysmal hemicrania. The dramatic improvement of this last cephalalgia with indomethacin treatment confirmed the diagnosis.

There is a clear overlap in clinical diagnosis between cluster headache (CH) and paroxysmal hemicrania (PH) and similarities are somewhat greater than differences. The originality of this report is the coexistence of contralateral TACs in the same patients at the same moment. According neuroimaging studies, CH hypothalamic activation occurs ipsilateral to the side of the headache while in PH hypothalamic activation occurs contralateral to the side of headache. It could be suggested that a continuous hypothalamic activation give a maladaptive plasticity recruiting closed neuronal aggregates responsible for the developing of PH after a long period of CH, confirming the central origin of both CH and PH. Further studies need to confirm this hypothesis.