Sunday, December 25, 2011

Commentary: Development and validation of the Asian Migraine Criteria (AMC)

Publication year: 2011
Source: Journal of Clinical Neuroscience, Available online 23 December 2011
Richard J. Stark
Precise and manageable diagnostic criteria are vital for researchers and clinicians dealing with headache. The lack of clear and accessible markers of the biological distinctions between different types of headache means that criteria are determined by expert consensus. The International Classification of Headache Disorders (ICHD) criteria are the current benchmark and are evolving. They are effective for research as they exclude questionable cases from consideration, but in clinical practice they are used inconsistently by neurologists, and rarely by general practitioners, because of complexity. In this issue of theJournal of Clinical Neuroscience, Ghandehari et al. have proposed a new set of criteria, the Asian Migraine Criteria (AMC). These criteria perform well against the gold-standard ICHD, but are almost as complex. They do not have the simplicity of the ID Migraine tool. Nevertheless, they are welcome: any tool that general practitioners may be attracted to use that increases the accuracy of headache diagnosis is to be applauded.





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