Cefalea en racimos

La cefalea en racimos (CR) es una de las cefaleas más terriblemente invalidantes. Desde el punto de vista clínico los pacientes que la sufren describen un dolor atroz, lancinante referido a la región periocular y que se acompaña de una serie de síntomas y signos, fundamentalmente de disfunción autonómica, como lagrimeo, edema palpebral o rinorrea, por citar sólo algunos, que facilitan su diagnóstico. Sin embargo, a pesar de su característico perfil clínico continúa siendo pobremente reconocida y mal controlada. Más aún, a pesar de los avances existentes en el tratamiento de este tipo de cefalea, muchos de los pacientes, a pesar del sufrimiento que les comportan sus crisis, reciben tratamientos inespecíficos e ineficaces. El objetivo de la presente revisión consiste en aprender a identificar los correctos criterios diagnósticos de la CR y los diagnósticos diferenciales respectivos; comprender la fisiopatología de la CR, su tratamiento y pronóstico mediante la revisión de la literatura. Para ello se realizará una puesta al día de esta entidad revisando desde los mecanismos fisiopatológicos implicados hasta las nuevas técnicas de neuroimagen funcional utilizadas para su estudio o los más recientes avances en el tratamiento incluyendo la estimulación cerebral profunda sobre el hipotálamo en aquellos casos desesperados de cefalea en racimos refractaria a todo tipo de tratamiento médico

Comparative risk of major congenital malformations with eight different antiepileptic drugs: a prospective cohort study of the EURAP registry

Background: Evidence for the comparative teratogenic risk of antiepileptic drugs is insufficient, particularly in relation to the dosage used. Therefore, we aimed to compare the occurrence of major congenital malformations following prenatal exposure to the eight most commonly used antiepileptic drugs in monotherapy. Methods: We did a longitudinal, prospective cohort study based on the EURAP international registry. We included data from pregnancies in women who were exposed to antiepileptic drug monotherapy at conception, prospectively identified from 42 countries contributing to EURAP. Follow-up data were obtained after each trimester, at birth, and 1 year after birth. The primary objective was to compare the risk of major congenital malformations assessed at 1 year after birth in offspring exposed prenatally to one of eight commonly used antiepileptic drugs (carbamazepine, lamotrigine, levetiracetam, oxcarbazepine, phenobarbital, phenytoin, topiramate, and valproate) and, whenever a dose dependency was identified, to compare the risks at different dose ranges. Logistic regression was used to make direct comparisons between treatments after adjustment for potential confounders and prognostic factors. Findings: Between June 20, 1999, and May 20, 2016, 7555 prospective pregnancies met the eligibility criteria. Of those eligible, 7355 pregnancies were exposed to one of the eight antiepileptic drugs for which the prevalence of major congenital malformations was 142 (10·3%) of 1381 pregnancies for valproate, 19 (6·5%) of 294 for phenobarbital, eight (6·4%) of 125 for phenytoin, 107 (5·5%) of 1957 for carbamazepine, six (3·9%) of 152 for topiramate, ten (3·0%) of 333 for oxcarbazepine, 74 (2·9%) of 2514 for lamotrigine, and 17 (2·8%) of 599 for levetiracetam. The prevalence of major congenital malformations increased with the dose at time of conception for carbamazepine (p=0·0140), lamotrigine (p=0·0145), phenobarbital (p=0·0390), and valproate (