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Acute Treatment for Primary Headache Disorders in Children

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Pharmacological Management of Headaches

Part of the book series: Headache ((HEAD))

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Abstract

The aim of acute treatment of primary headache disorders is to relieve or to ameliorate the symptoms of an attack. The data on efficacy and safety of medications in children are limited and therefore it may be necessary to use medications off label, estimating risks and benefits of each therapy. For acute treatment of migraine, acetaminophen and ibuprofen are first-line drugs because of their excellent safety profile. Adolescents and children not responding to these compounds (or to other analgesics and NSAIDs) may be treated with triptans, i.e. nasal sumatriptan, nasal zolmitriptan, rizatriptan and almotriptan licensed at least in some countries. With respect to the acute treatment of tension-type headache and cluster headache, randomized controlled trials are not available.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria

    Çiçek Wöber-Bingöl MD

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  1. Çiçek Wöber-Bingöl MD
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Correspondence to Çiçek Wöber-Bingöl MD .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Neurology, Athens Naval Hospital, Athens, Greece

    Dimos D. Mitsikostas

  2. Department of Neurology, Ghent University Hospital, Ghent, Belgium

    Koen Paemeleire

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© 2016 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

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Wöber-Bingöl, Ç. (2016). Acute Treatment for Primary Headache Disorders in Children. In: Mitsikostas, D., Paemeleire, K. (eds) Pharmacological Management of Headaches. Headache. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-19911-5_13

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-19911-5_13

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-19910-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-19911-5

  • eBook Packages: MedicineMedicine (R0)

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