Meta-analysis of prednisone in withdrawal therapy following medication overuse headache

Abstract

The objective of this meta-analysis was to evaluate the therapeutic effectiveness of prednisone in withdrawal therapy following medication overuse headache. The Cochrane, PubMed, EMBASE, Web of Science, CNKI, VIP, and Wanfang data were searched to identify randomized control trials of prednisone for the treatment of medication overuse headache. Two researchers independently screened published studies according to inclusion and exclusion criteria, and evaluated the methodological quality of included studies. Revman 5.3 software was used to analyze the extracted data, and a total of six randomized control trials involving 510 patients were included in the study. Meta-analysis indicated that there was no significant difference in the ratio of taking painkillers again after withdrawal (RR=0.89, 95% CI: 0.70,1.14, P=0.36) compared with the control group. There was also no significant difference between the experimental group and the control group in the incidence of withdrawal reactions (RR=1.28, 95% CI: 0.87, 1.89, P=0.21), severity of headache (RR=1.56, 95% CI: -4.83, 7.95, P=0. 63) and the frequency of headache attacks after withdrawal (RR=0.14, 95% CI: -0.35, 0.63, P=0.58). It is concluded that prednisone does not alleviate symptoms in patients with medication overuse headache after withdrawal.