Increased risk of essential tremor in migraine: A population-based retrospective cohort study

Chi-Ieong Lau; Che-Chen Lin; Hsuan-Ju Chen; Han-Cheng Wang; Wei-Hung Chen; Ji-An Liang

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0173586

Increased risk of essential tremor in migraine: A population-based retrospective cohort study

PLoS One. 2017 Mar 13;12(3):e0173586. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0173586. eCollection 2017.

Authors

Chi-Ieong Lau^{1

2

3

4}, Che-Chen Lin^{5

6}, Hsuan-Ju Chen^{5

7}, Han-Cheng Wang^{1

8

9}, Wei-Hung Chen^{1

8}, Ji-An Liang^{10

11}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Neurology, Shin Kong Wu Ho-Su Memorial Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan.
² Division of Clinical Neurology, Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.
³ Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, Queen Square, London, United Kingdom.
⁴ College of Medicine, Fu-Jen Catholic University, Taipei, Taiwan.
⁵ Management Office for Health Data, China Medical University Hospital, Taichung, Taiwan.
⁶ Healthcare Service Research Center (HSRC), Taichung Veterans General Hospital, Taichung, Taiwan.
⁷ College of Medicine, China Medical University, Taichung, Taiwan.
⁸ College of Medicine, Taipei Medical University, Taipei, Taiwan.
⁹ College of Medicine, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan.
¹⁰ Graduate Institute of Clinical Medical Science, School of Medicine, College of Medicine, China Medical University, Taichung, Taiwan.
¹¹ Department of Radiation Oncology, China Medical University Hospital, Taichung, Taiwan.

Abstract

Purpose: To examine the long-term risk of essential tremor (ET) in migraine.

Methods: Using population-based administrative data from a subset of the National Health Insurance Research Database (NHIRD) of Taiwan, we identified 22,696 newly diagnosed migraineurs (mean age 44.5 years) and a matched migraine-free cohort of 90,784 individuals in the period 2000-2008. Multivariable Cox proportional hazards regression analysis was conducted for assessing the ET risk for the migraine cohort compared to the migraine-free cohort.

Results: After adjusting for covariates, the migraine cohort had a 1.83-fold increased risk (95% CI 1.50-2.23) of subsequent ET in comparison to the migraine-free cohort (8.97 vs. 4.81 per 10,000 person-years). In the subgroup analysis, patients with migraine were associated with higher risks of ET, regardless of gender, age or the existence of comorbidities.

Conclusion: Our findings demonstrated an association between migraine and ET, suggesting a possible shared pathophysiology underpinning both disorders.

MeSH terms

Cohort Studies
Essential Tremor / complications*
Humans
Migraine Disorders / complications*
Proportional Hazards Models
Retrospective Studies
Taiwan

Grants and funding

This study is supported in part by Taiwan Ministry of Health and Welfare Clinical Trial and Research Center of Excellence (MOHW105-TDU-B-212-133019), China Medical University Hospital, Academia Sinica Taiwan Biobank Stroke Biosignature Project (BM10501010037), NRPB Stroke Clinical Trial Consortium (MOST 105-2325-B-039-003), Tseng-Lien Lin Foundation, Taichung, Taiwan, Taiwan Brain Disease Foundation, Taipei, Taiwan, and Katsuzo and Kiyo Aoshima Memorial Funds, Japan; and CMU under the Aim for Top University Plan of the Ministry of Education, Taiwan. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. No additional external funding was received for this study.