Recent advances in migraine management

It is very unwise to diagnose a headache on the basis of a good response to treatment with sumatriptan or other triptan. Patients with migraine under the age of 18 years are best treated with simple analgesics or non-pharmacological therapy. While dietary triggers for migraine are often emphasised by patients, laboratory studies have repeatedly failed to confirm that particular foods trigger migraine attacks. The introduction of sumatriptan in the early 1990s has arguably been the most important advance in migraine management in the last decade. (author abstract)