@article {Al-Gethami284, author = {Hanin Al-Gethami and Talal Alrifai Muhammad and Ahmed AlRumayyan and Waleed AlTuwaijri and Duaa Baarmah}, title = {The comorbidity of headaches in pediatric epilepsy patients: How common and what types?}, volume = {24}, number = {4}, pages = {284--289}, year = {2019}, doi = {10.17712/nsj.2019.4.20190043}, publisher = {Neurosciences Journal}, abstract = {Objectives: To estimate the prevalence and characteristics of headache in pediatric epileptic patients.Methods: This cross-sectional study was performed over 6 months period from January 2018 to June 2018 at King Abdullah Specialist Children Hospital, King Abdulaziz Medical City, Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia using a structured questionnaire in pediatric patients with epilepsy.Results: There were 142 patients enrolled (males, 57.7\%; average age, 10.7{\textpm}3.1~years) with idiopathic epilepsy (n=115, 81\%) or symptomatic epilepsy (n=27, 19\%). Additionally, patients had focal epilepsy (n=102, 72\%) or generalized epilepsy (n=40, 28\%), and among them, 11 had absence epilepsy. Overall, 65 (45.7\%) patients had headaches compared with 3/153 (2\%) in the control group (p \< 0.0001). Among the 65 patients with headaches, 29 (44.6\%) had migraine-type, 12 (18.4\%) had tension-type, and 24 (36.9\%) had unclassified headache. There was no significant difference in age, gender, type of epilepsy syndrome, and antiepileptic used except in patients with or without headache. For migraine patients, there was a lower headache prevalence in the subgroup treated with valproic acid compared with other treatments.Conclusion: Headache, predominantly migraine, is a common problem in pediatric epileptic patients and choosing valproic acid when possible can be important in preventing migraine in these patients.}, URL = {https://nsj.org.sa/content/24/4/284}, eprint = {https://nsj.org.sa/content/24/4/284.full.pdf}, journal = {Neurosciences Journal} }