The prognosis of childhood abdominal migraine

Aims-To determine the clinical course of childhood abdominal migraine, seven to 10 years after the diagnosis.

Methods-A total of 54 children with abdominal migraine were studied; 35 were identified from a population survey carried out on Aberdeen schoolchildren between 1991 and 1993, and 19 from outpatient records of children in the same age group who had attended the Royal Aberdeen Children's Hospital. Controls were 54 children who did not have abdominal pain in childhood, matched for age and sex, obtained from either the population survey or the patient administration system. Main outcome measures were presence or resolution of abdominal migraine and past or present history of headache fulfilling the International Headache Society (IHS) criteria for the diagnosis of migraine.

Results-Abdominal migraine had resolved in 31 cases (61%). Seventy per cent of cases with abdominal migraine were either current (52%) or previous (18%) sufferers from headaches that fulfilled the IHS criteria for migraine, compared to 20% of the controls.

Conclusions-These results support the concept of abdominal migraine as a migraine prodrome, and suggest that our diagnostic criteria for the condition are robust.