Affiliations: [a]
Epidemiology, IQVIA, Frankfurt, Germany
| [b] Institut für Sozialmedizin, Arbeitsmedizin und Public Health (ISAP), Medizinische Fakultät der Universität Leipzig | [c] Faculty of Medicine, University of Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, Montigny-le-Bretonneux, France
Correspondence:
[*]
Correspondence to: Prof. Dr. rer. med. Karel Kostev, Epidemiology, IQVIA, Commercial GmbH & Co OHG,
Unterschweinstiege 2-14, 60549 Frankfurt am Main, Germany. Tel.: +49 (0)69 66 04 4878; E-mail: karel.kostev@iqvia.com.
Abstract: Background:Most previous studies focusing on the migraine headache-dementia relationship have failed to simultaneously adjust for several common comorbidities. Objective:The goal of this retrospective cohort study was to investigate the association between migraine headaches and dementia in general practices in the UK. Methods:The current study sample included patients who received a migraine diagnosis in one of 67 general practices in the UK between January 1997 and December 2016 (index date). Patients without migraine diagnoses were matched 1 : 1 to patients with migraine diagnoses based on propensity scores using a greedy algorithm and derived from the logistic regression using age, sex, index year, and co-diagnoses. The main outcome of the study was the association between migraine headaches and the incidence of dementia within 10 years of the index date. Results:This study included 7,454 individuals with or without migraine diagnoses. Mean age was 67.7 years (SD = 5.8 years), and 72.9% of patients were women. Within 10 years of the index date, 5.2% of participants with and 3.7% of those without migraine headaches were diagnosed with dementia (log-rank p < 0.001). The respective figures were 5.8% and 3.6% in women (log-rank p < 0.001) and 4.5% and 3.4% in men (log-rank p = 0.722). We observed a positive association between migraine diagnoses and all-cause dementia (hazard ratio [HR] = 1.43) as well as Alzheimer’s disease (HR = 1.87). Sensitivity analyses further revealed that these associations were only significant in women (all-cause dementia: HR = 1.65; Alzheimer’s disease: HR = 2.27). Conclusion:Migraine diagnoses were positively associated with all-cause dementia and Alzheimer’s disease in women.
Keywords: Dementia, migraine, retrospective cohort study, sex differences, United
Kingdom
