Role of NSAIDs in acute treatment of headache

Headache is one of the most common neurological disorders worldwide. Tension-type headache (TTH) represents the most frequent headache form, involving 82% of sufferers. Of this population, 14% are affected by migraine and 4% by a chronic form of headache (chronic daily headache [CDH]). Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) represent the most used acute therapy for TTH and migraine because of issues with coxibs safety. NSAIDs play a minor role is the treatment in trigeminal-autonomic cephalgias (TACs); if excluding indomethacin in the acute management of paroxysmal hemicrania (PH). Despite limitations in their utilization, NSAIDs still constitute drugs of primary importance, being effective and being well tolerated in the treatment of acute episodes. © 2007 Wiley-Liss, Inc