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Systematic literature review on the delays in the diagnosis and misdiagnosis of cluster headache

Buture, Alina; Ahmed, Fayyaz; Dikomitis, Lisa; Boland, Jason W.

Authors

Alina Buture

Fayyaz Ahmed

Lisa Dikomitis

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Dr Jason Boland J.Boland@hull.ac.uk
Senior Clinical Lecturer and Honorary Consultant in Palliative Medicine



Abstract

Introduction
Patients with cluster headache (CH), the most common trigeminal autonomic cephalalgia, often face delayed diagnosis, misdiagnosis and mismanagement.

Objectives
To identify, appraise and synthesise clinical studies on the delays in diagnosis and misdiagnosis of CH in order to determine its causes and help the management of this condition.

Methods
The systematic review was prepared, conducted and reported in accordance with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. It was registered with International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews. A systematic search of different electronic databases (Medline, EMBASE, PsycINFO, PubMed, CINAHL, BNI, HMIC, AMED, HBE and Cochrane Library) was carried out in May 2017. Reference lists of relevant articles were hand searched.

Results
The search identified 201 unique studies. Fifteen studies met the inclusion criteria of which 13 case series studies and two survey studies. Nine studies assessed the delays in diagnosis and misdiagnosis of CH, five studies the delays in diagnosis and one study the misdiagnosis of CH. The studies included 4661 patients. Delays in diagnosis, misdiagnosis and mismanagement have been reported in many European countries, Japan and in the USA with well-developed health services. The patients with CH often visited many different clinicians, surgeons and dentists and received multiple diagnosis prior to being correctly diagnosed.

Conclusion
This systematic review shows that the delays in the diagnosis of CH are a widespread problem, the time to diagnosis still vary from country to country and both patients and physicians are responsible for the delays in diagnosis.

Citation

Buture, A., Ahmed, F., Dikomitis, L., & Boland, J. W. (2018). Systematic literature review on the delays in the diagnosis and misdiagnosis of cluster headache. Neurological Sciences, 40(1), 25–39. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10072-018-3598-5

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Sep 29, 2018
Online Publication Date Oct 10, 2018
Publication Date Oct 10, 2018
Deposit Date Dec 14, 2018
Publicly Available Date Mar 28, 2024
Journal Neurological Sciences
Print ISSN 1590-1874
Electronic ISSN 1590-3478
Publisher Springer Verlag
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 40
Issue 1
Pages 25–39
DOI https://doi.org/10.1007/s10072-018-3598-5
Keywords Diagnostic error; Diagnostic mistake; Therapeutic error; Mismanagement; Unrecognised diagnosis
Public URL https://hull-repository.worktribe.com/output/1191105
Publisher URL https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10072-018-3598-5

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Copyright Statement
© The Author(s) 2018

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.





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