Botulinum Toxin—A Current Place in the Treatment of Chronic Migraine and Other Primary Headaches

Abstract

Headaches are a very common condition that most people will experience many times during their lives. This article presents the primary headaches, which are a large group of diseases where the headache is not a symptom of another known disease. Tension-type headache affects approximately 80% of the general population, and the prevalence of migraine is estimated at 10–12%. Clinical data and experience to date have demonstrated that botulinum toxin may be an effective prophylactic treatment for chronic headache types. It has been used in neurology for the treatment of dystonia and blepharospasm. Now it has been approved to treat chronic migraine and has been shown to confer significant benefit in refractory cases. Based on clinical experience botulinum toxin has also been tried in other headache disorders. While it is intuitively attractive to think that due to its effect on pain by sensory modulation, there may also be efficacy in its use in chronic tension-type headache and cluster headache, so far, there is little evidence to support this. Botulinum toxin is effective in pain control through its interaction with the SNARE complex, which inhibits the release of neurotransmitters, such as glutamate, substance P and calcitonin gene-related peptide. OnabotulinumtoxinA is effective not only in headache frequency and pain intensity but in other parameters, including quality of life.