Arteriographic Study Of Effect Of Drugs On Intracranial Vessels In Patients With Chronic Headache - A Preliminary Report

It IS BELIEVED that certain types of headaches are caused by aberrations in the caliber of the intracranial blood vessels. 1 Evidence has been presented by Wolff and his associates to indicate that the headache accompanying a variety of pathologic states, such as fever, anoxia, sepsis, carbon monoxide poisoning, and following the use of nitrates results mainly from dilatation and distention of cerebral arteries. 2 It occurred to us that arteriography might be utilized for the purpose of demonstrating roentgenographically variations in the size of the intracranial vessels. This possibility was tested in 8 patients, and the results obtained provide the material for this preliminary report. METHOD Eight patients who gave a history of chronically recurring headache, and who had been carefully studied in the headache clinic, were selected with their consent to be experimental subjects. Arteriograms were obtained before and after the administration of the drug to be tested.