Frontal lobe shrinkage: Is it a cause of headache in adults?

Abstract

Objective: This study is an attempt to identify if the frequently-found frontal lobe shrinkage
on brain computed tomography (CT) scan can
be linked as an etiological factor for headache in
adults.
Method: Over six years, 487 adult patients (166
males, 321 females), aged between 18-85 years
(mean age: 33. 76 years), who complained of
headache only (without any associated symptoms
or signs) and referred to do brain computed tomography (CT) scan were included. The age, gender
and findings on CT images were recorded. Patients
were classified according to age into three groups:
1: 18-40 years, 2: 41-60 years, and 3: > 60 years,
and according to CT results into also three groups:
normal brain CT, frontal lobe shrinkage and global
brain atrophy.
Result: Headache is common among female gender with a male to female ratio of 1:2, and among
age group 1 (74.7%). 69.2% of patients had normal CT finding, while 27.7% had frontal lobe
shrinkage and only 3.1% had global brain atrophy,
with no other findings found. Female gender and
young adult age group (group 1) also predominated among the three CT finding groups, and among
cases with frontal lobe shrinkage (females: 62.2%,
age group 1: 68.9%).
Conclusion: Young female patients were more
affected by headache, and the finding of frontal
lobe shrinkage was frequent among them, strongly raising the possibility of causative association
with headache.