ABSTRACT

Cases with headache should be initially evaluated with history and findings of physical and neurological examination, and laboratory investigations should be performed, if considered necessary. In this study we aimed to evaluate the history, laboratory findings and results of physical and neurological examination of the patients followed-up with the diagnosis of primary headache at our Pediatric Neurology Department, and to establish the relationships among these findings with respect to differential diagnosis. A follow-up form including gender, age at admission, features of headache, family history and findings of electroencephalography, visual evoked potentials, brain computerized tomography or brain magnetic resonance imaging was prepared, and these data were obtained from the patients' files. A total of 192 patients with a mean age of 4 to 17 years were enrolled in the study. There were no statistically significant differences between the males and females with regard to the comparison parameters except for abnormalities in brain imaging (p>0.05). Abnormalities in brain imaging were significantly higher in males than in females (p=0.02). There were no statistically significant differences among the groups constituted on the basis of age at admission with regard to the findings except for half headache and family history (p>0.05). Half headache was significantly higher after the age of 11, and family history was significantly more positive in the age group of 7 to 11 (p=0.01). There was a significant correlation between abnormalities in electroencephalography, and abnormalities in visual evoked potentials and brain imaging (p=0.001 and p=0.02, respectively). In conclusion, electroencephalography may be used as a useful, cheap and harmless method in differential diagnosis of primary and secondary headache.