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(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- Patients suffering from cluster headaches may be able to alleviate their pain within 15 minutes by undergoing a high-flow oxygen treatment.
About 80 percent of cluster headache patients receiving a 15-minute, high-flow oxygen treatment reported being pain-free within 15 minutes, compared with 20 percent of the patients receiving air.
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"To our knowledge, this is the first adequately powered trial of high-flow oxygen compared with placebo, and it confirms clinical experience and current guidelines that inhaled oxygen can be used as an acute attack therapy for episodic and chronic cluster headache," study authors wrote.
Over a five-year study, researchers at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery in London treated 109 adult participants for four episodes of cluster headaches, alternating between high-flow oxygen at 100 percent and a placebo of high-flow air.
Authors say their findings may pave the way for further studies to provide support for the wider use of oxygen treatments as an alternative to triptan agents.
Untreated cluster headaches last from 15 minutes to three hours, and can attack as seldom as once every other day or as frequently as eight times every day. Attacks typically occur in week- or month-long clusters, separated by periods of months or years.
SOURCE: JAMA, December 2009
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