Key clinical point: After 10 years, a high proportion of migraineurs improve. Reduction in headache frequency, medical follow-up, and nonsmoking are independent factors associated with improvement.
Major finding: After 10 years, 48.2% of patients did not receive a medical follow-up for their migraine. Moreover, 47.4% (180/380) of patients had a decrease of 50% or higher in frequency (defined as improvement), which increased the proportion of episodic migraine (73.7% vs. 87.4%). Factors independently associated with improvement included a baseline frequency of greater than 10 headache days/month (odds ratio [OR], 3.04), having a medical follow-up (OR, 2.45), and nonsmoking (OR, 2.13).
Study details: A 10-year longitudinal study included 1,109 patients with migraine who answered an initial survey (380 completed the survey) and compared initial (2008) and final (2018) data, focusing on baseline prognostic factors of improvement (50% or higher frequency reduction) and no improvement (less than 50% frequency reduction).
Disclosures: No study sponsor was identified. The presenting author had no disclosures. Two coauthors received honoraria from pharmaceutical companies.
Citation: Caronna E et al. Headache. 2020 Feb 18. doi: 10.1111/head.13774.