Characterization of migraine aura: a study of a population at a single Polish headache treatment centre

Purpose
Migraine without aura is the most common type of the condition, whereas migraine with aura is substantially less common. Several features of aura symptoms may help us to define a different management approach. The aim of the study is to describe the characteristics of migraine aura and assess its impact on the daily lives of Polish patients. The characteristics assessed included type and severity of aura as well as the risk of migraine chronification.

Methods
The study included a group of 111 (87.4% female and 12.6% male) consecutive patients from the Headache Treatment Outpatient Clinic at Bielański Hospital in Warsaw diagnosed with episodic (72%) and chronic (28%) migraine with and without aura. The patients were diagnosed according to the International Classification of Headache Disorders 3rd edition of the International Headache Society.

Results
The final analysis was performed on the selected 28 patients (22 female and 6 male) with migraine with aura. Three patients with aura were diagnosed with chronic migraine. Twelve percent of all 111 migraine patients had migraine attacks both with and without aura. The most common (86%) aura type was the typical aura.

Conclusions
The study confirms that visual symptoms are the most common manifestation of aura among the patients studied. In some cases, the visual symptoms can be accompanied by other features of the typical migraine aura such as paraesthesia and speech disturbances. Other types of aura, such as vestibular and hemiplegic symptoms, occur very rarely. Only 10.7% of patients with migraine with aura transformed into the chronic type of the disease in comparison to 33.7% of patients with migraine without aura.