• Eigil Lindekilde Larsen, Håkan Ashina, Afrim Iljazi, Haidar Muhsen Al-Khazali, Kristoffer Seem, Messoud Ashina, Sait Ashina, and Schytz Henrik Winther HW http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6262-2986 Danish Headache Center, Department of Neurology, Rigshospitalet Glostrup, Faculty of Hea.
• Danish Headache Center, Department of Neurology, Rigshospitalet Glostrup, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.
• J Headache Pain. 2019 Oct 21; 20 (1): 98.

BackgroundPost-traumatic headache (PTH) is associated with considerable disability and reduced health-related quality of life. Despite the very high prevalence of PTH, there are no evidence-based guidelines for PTH treatment. Thus, we found it timely to provide a systematic review of the current literature on acute and preventive pharmacological treatment of PTH using PubMed and Embase databases.FindingsIncluded studies involved acute and preventive pharmacological treatment of headache attributed to traumatic injury to the head in adherence to the International Classification of Headache Disorders (ICHD) criteria. Of 1424 potentially relevant articles identified, 63 were retrieved for detailed evaluation and seven studies (one prospective and six retrospective) met the inclusion criteria. None of the seven included studies were randomized clinical trials (RCTs) or used a placebo-controlled study design.ConclusionWe found that there is a lack of high-quality evidence-based studies on the pharmacological treatment of PTH. Future studies are highly needed and must emphasize open-label studies with rigorous methodology or RCTs with a placebo-controlled design.

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