Botulinum toxin in the management of chronic migraine: clinical evidence and experience

Claus M Escher; Lejla Paracka; Dirk Dressler; Katja Kollewe

doi:10.1177/1756285616677005

Botulinum toxin in the management of chronic migraine: clinical evidence and experience

Ther Adv Neurol Disord. 2017 Feb;10(2):127-135. doi: 10.1177/1756285616677005. Epub 2016 Nov 16.

Authors

Claus M Escher¹, Lejla Paracka², Dirk Dressler², Katja Kollewe³

Affiliations

¹ Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany.
² Department of Neurology, Movement Disorder Section, Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany.
³ Department of Neurology, Movement Disorder Section, Hannover Medical School, Carl-Neuberg Str. 1, D-30625 Hannover, Germany.

Abstract

Chronic migraine (CM) is a severely disabling neurological condition characterized by episodes of pulsating unilateral or bilateral headache. The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved onabotulinumtoxinA (Botox^®) for the prophylactic treatment of CM in 2010. It has been shown that onabotulinumtoxinA is effective in the reduction of headache frequency and severity in patients with CM. Treatment is well tolerated by the patients. This review reports on the history of botulinum neurotoxin (BoNT) in CM and presents the current clinical evidence for the use of onabotulinumtoxinA in the treatment of CM.

Keywords: Botox®; botulinum neurotoxin; chronic daily headache; chronic migraine; onabotulinumtoxinA.

Publication types

Review