Episodic migraines were safely and effectively treated using percutaneous mastoid electrical stimulators in a randomized, double-blind, sham-controlled, multicenter trial.
Yang Juan of the department of neurology at the Second People’s Hospital of Chengdu (China), and associates reported that a group of 39 migraine patients who received percutaneous mastoid electrical stimulation (PMES) experienced significantly fewer migraine days, compared with a control group of 37 patients who received sham electrical treatment. After 3 months, migraine days were reduced by 71.3% from baseline, compared with a 14.4% reduction in the control group. About a third of PMES patients experienced no migraines in the third month, whereas no patients in the control group had more than a 75% reduction in migraine incidence.
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There were no adverse reactions reported either in the PMES group or in the control group during the treatment period.
“The best treatment mode including current intensity and duration is unclear. Whether extension of the time interval (e.g., once or twice a week) of PMES treatment may also have preventive effect remains to be determined. In addition, as the patients recruited in this study were not highly disabled, the preventive effect of PMES treatment in patients with more frequent migraine episodes and in patients with chronic migraine needs further study,” the investigators wrote.
Read the full study in Cephalalgia (2016 Nov 7. doi: 10.1177/0333102416678623).