Importance of recognizing sentinel headache Pereira JL, de Albuquerque LA, Dellaretti M, de Carvalho GT, Vieira G, Rocha MI, Loures LL, Christo PP, de Sousa AA - Surg Neurol Int

http://surgicalneurologyint.com/article.asp?issn=2152-7806;year=2012;volume=3;issue=1;spage=162;epage=162;aulast=Pereira

ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Surg Neurol Int 2012,  3:162

Importance of recognizing sentinel headache

Júlio Leonardo Barbosa Pereira¹, Lucas Alverne Freitas de Albuquerque¹, Marcos Dellaretti¹, Gervásio Teles Cardoso de Carvalho²,Gerival Vieira¹, Marcella Israel Rocha³, Laize Luzia Andrade Loures³, Paulo Pereira Christo⁴, Atos Alves de Sousa⁵

¹ Neurology and Neurosurgery Service, Santa Casa Hospital, Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil

² Neurology and Neurosurgery Service, Santa Casa Hospital, Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais; Department of Neurosurgery, Faculty of Medical Sciences of Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil³ Medical Student, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Minas Gerais, Brazil⁴ Neurology and Neurosurgery Service and Graduate and Research Program, Santa Casa Hospital, Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil⁵ Neurology and Neurosurgery Service and Graduate and Research Program, Santa Casa Hospital, Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais; Department of Neurosurgery, Faculty of Medical Sciences of Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil

Date of Submission	12-Aug-2012
Date of Acceptance	23-Oct-2012
Date of Web Publication	26-Dec-2012

Correspondence Address:
Gerival Vieira
Neurology and Neurosurgery Service, Santa Casa Hospital, Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais 
Brazil


© 2012 Pereira et al; This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

DOI: 10.4103/2152-7806.105101

Abstract

Background: Sentinel headache (SH) is a kind of secondary headache and is characterized as sudden, intense, and persistent, preceding spontaneous subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) by days or weeks.
Methods: Eighty-nine consecutive patients with a diagnosis of spontaneous SAH were evaluated following admission to the Neurosurgical Service at Santa Casa Hospital, Belo Horizonte, between December 2009 and December 2010.
Results: Out of the 89 patients, 64 (71.9%) were women. Mean age was 48.9 years (SD ± 13.4, ranging from 18 to 85 years). Twenty-four patients (27.0%) presented SH, which occurred, in average, 10.6 days (SD ± 13.5) before a SAH. No statistically significant differences were observed between the presence of SH and gender, arterial hypertension and migraine ( P > 0.05), Glasgow Comma Scale (GCS) and World Federation of Neurological Surgeons (WFNS) scale at admission.
Conclusion: The prevalence of SH was 27% in this study but no related factors were identified. Therefore, further clarification of this important entity is required so as to facilitate its recognition in emergency services and improve the prognosis of patients with cerebral aneurysms.

Keywords: Intracranial aneurysm, sentinel headache, subarachnoid hemorrhage

How to cite this article: Pereira JL, de Albuquerque LA, Dellaretti M, de Carvalho GT, Vieira G, Rocha MI, Loures LL, Christo PP, de Sousa AA. Importance of recognizing sentinel headache. Surg Neurol Int 2012;3:162

How to cite this URL: Pereira JL, de Albuquerque LA, Dellaretti M, de Carvalho GT, Vieira G, Rocha MI, Loures LL, Christo PP, de Sousa AA. Importance of recognizing sentinel headache. Surg Neurol Int [serial online] 2012 [cited 2012 Dec 27];3:162. Available from: http://www.surgicalneurologyint.com/text.asp?2012/3/1/162/105101