Increased risk of essential tremor in migraine: A population-based retrospective cohort study.

Chi-Ieong Lau,Chi-Ieong Lau,Chi-Ieong Lau,Chi-Ieong Lau,Wei-Hung Chen,Che-Chen Lin,Hsuan-Ju Chen,Hsuan-Ju Chen,Ji-An Liang,Han-Cheng Wang,Han-Cheng Wang,Han-Cheng Wang,Coro Paisan-Ruiz

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0173586

Abstract

PurposeTo examine the long-term risk of essential tremor (ET) in migraine.MethodsUsing population-based administrative data from a subset of the National Health Insurance Research Database (NHIRD) of Taiwan, we identified 22,696 newly diagnosed migraineurs (mean age 44.5 years) and a matched migraine-free cohort of 90,784 individuals in the period 2000–2008. Multivariable Cox proportional hazards regression analysis was conducted for assessing the ET risk for the migraine cohort compared to the migraine-free cohort.ResultsAfter adjusting for covariates, the migraine cohort had a 1.83-fold increased risk (95% CI 1.50–2.23) of subsequent ET in comparison to the migraine-free cohort (8.97 vs. 4.81 per 10,000 person-years). In the subgroup analysis, patients with migraine were associated with higher risks of ET, regardless of gender, age or the existence of comorbidities.ConclusionOur findings demonstrated an association between migraine and ET, suggesting a possible shared pathophysiology underpinning both disorders.

Highlights

Both migraine and essential tremor (ET) are common neurological disorders
Our findings demonstrated an association between migraine and ET, suggesting a possible shared pathophysiology underpinning both disorders
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript

Summary

Introduction

Both migraine and essential tremor (ET) are common neurological disorders. Another study showed the co-segregation of classical migraine in one-fourth of patients with hereditary essential tremor [2]. Together both studies suggest comorbidity between migraine and ET, yet a common criticism argued that they suffered from suboptimal comparisons with uncontrolled patient features such as age and sex [6]. Two age- and sex-matched case-control studies reported conflicting results [4, 5]. A Chinese study disclosed a higher prevalence of lifetime migraine (22%) among 150 patients with ET compared with 150 controls (12.7%) [5]. Hu et al concluded that the contradictory results might be due to the different ethnic background of the studied populations as well as the differences in patient characteristics [5]

Results

Discussion

Conclusion