Presence of a foramen arcuale as a possible cause for headaches and migraine: Systematic review and meta-analysis

Publication date: Available online 23 May 2018 Source:Journal of Clinical Neuroscience Author(s): Przemysław A. Pękala, Brandon Michael Henry, Kevin Phan, Jakub R. Pękala, Dominik Taterra, Jerzy A. Walocha, R. Shane Tubbs, Krzysztof A. Tomaszewski The foramen arcuale (FA) is an osseous bridge that can be formed on the posterior arch of the atlas, often observed on lateral radiographs of the cervical spine. Currently, there is a lack of studies that systematically review the available literature on the FA and its role in headaches and migraines. Therefore, we conducted an extensive search of the major electronic databases to identify all studies that reported relevant data on patients with versus without FA and prevalence of headaches or migraines. No date or language restrictions were applied. Data on the prevalence, type (complete and incomplete), and laterality of the FA and relationship with headaches or migraines were extracted and pooled into a meta-analysis. There were 168/412 (40.8%) patients with headaches in the FA group compared to 368/1691 (21.8%) patients with headaches in the no FA group (OR 4.68; P = 0.002). The proportion of headaches for complete FA was 73/125 (58.4%) compared with 80/413 (19.4%) for incomplete FA (OR 5.04; P = 0.04). When comparing incomplete FA to no FA, the proportion of headaches was 36/85 (42.3%) vs 65/560 (11.6%), and this was significantly different (OR 6.13; P = 0.009). The proportion of headaches in patients w...
Source: Journal of Clinical Neuroscience - Category: Neuroscience Source Type: research