Ayeesha Kamran Kamal, Rushna Raza, Sahar Zafar.
Approach to symptomatic migraine - a review of literature.
Pak J Neurological Sci Jan ;5(1):25-37.

Migraine affects as many as 18% of women and 6% of men aged 25-55 years and is under-recognized worldwide.1 Although majority of the cases are idiopathic, sometimes migraine can also present as a symptom of another underlying pathology or disorder that perturbs the migraine-generating structures, causing secondary migraine headaches. Diagnosis of symptomatic migraine can be made when headaches which satisfy the International Headache Society (IHS) diagnostic criteria for migraine occur due to an underlying pathology and cannot be classified as “idiopathic”. We report the causes of symptomatic migraine based on a critical literature review. Symptoms specific to a particular organic disorder are often present but migraine can sometimes be the only clinical manifestation. Knowledge of these entities will alert the astute clinician to investigate the possibility of an underlying disorder. This may require neuroimaging, genetic testing and often multi-disciplinary input from, for example, vascular surgeons, cardiologists or oncologists.

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