A clinicopathological study of various aetiologies of headache in otorhinolaryngology

Abstract

Background: Headache is one of the most common complaints with which a patient presents to an outpatient clinic. Because of the wide range of clinical presentations and etiologies, evaluation of headache is often a challenging problem for the clinician. In our study, we are finding out the possible aetiologies of headache in patients attending the otorhinolaryngology department. Methods: The patients underwent history taking and ENT examination involving hematological, radiological investigations and all data were recorded by in Microsoft excel Sheet and analyzed with the help of SPSS 20 software for windows. Results: The 128 (35.9%) patients had otomastoiditis, 120 (33.6%) patients had nasal mass, 33 (9.2%) patients had sinusitis, 29 (8.1%) patients had laryngeal cancer, 14 (3.9%) patients had tongue cancer, 2 (0.6%) patients had parapharyngeal mass and 31 (8.7%) patients had normal findings. Conclusions: Most common pathologies associated with headache in ENT are otitis externa followed by sympatomatic deviated nasal septum.