You are viewing the site in preview mode

Skip to main content

Table 2 Summary of the main results of previous systematic reviews and meta-analysis focusing on neuromodulation in migraine treatment

From: Neuromodulation techniques for acute and preventive migraine treatment: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials

  First author Date Journal Topic Main conclusion
rTMS / tDCS Fregni 2020 Int J Neuropsychopharmacol tDCS in neurological and psychiatric disorders tDCS is probably effective (Level B) for migraine
Baptista 2019 Pain reports Latin American and Caribbean consensus on rTMS and tDCS for chronic pain management Level B recommendation for anodal tDCS over M1 or Oz/Cz tDCS. Level B recommendation for high-frequency rTMS over M1
Feng 2019 Headache rTMS and tDCS Excitatory M1 stimulation showed significant effects on reducing headache intensity and frequency with a large effect size. Excitatory DLPFC stimulation showed a significant effect on the headache intensity with a large effect size but no reduction of frequency of headache attacks.
Stilling 2019 Headache TMS and tDCS for the treatment of headache rTMS has moderate evidence that it contributes to reductions in headache frequency, duration, intensity, abortive medication use, depression, and functional impairment.
Shirahige 2016 Headache rTMS and tDCS tDCS reduced migraine attacks frequency (SMD: −0.75; 95% CI: −1.25 to − 0.24; P = .004). There was no effect of rTMS.
TMS Lan 2017 J Headache Pain Efficacy of single-pulse TMS in randomized controlled trials Single-pulse TMS is effective for the acute treatment of migraine with aura after the first attack. The efficacy of TMS on chronic migraine was not significant.
ONS Cadalso 2018 J Oral Facial Pain Headache ONS in intractable primary headache disorders 3 RCTs: significant reduction of headache days per month (difference = −3.061; 95% confidence interval [CI] = −5.162 to −0.961; P = .004) compared to sham
Yang 2016 Pain pratice ONS for migraine Results from 4 retrospective studies and 1 case series indicated that ONS significantly reduced the number of days with headache in patients with migraine. However, the evidence of ONS efficacy established by 5 RCTs was limited.
Chen 2015 Plos One ONS for chronic migraine 3 multicenter RCTs: mean reduction of 2.59 days (95% CI 0.91 to 4.27, I2 = 0%) of prolonged, moderate to severe headache per month at 3 months compared with a sham control.
VNS Lai 2020 Neuromodulation Cervical non-invasive VNS for migraine and cluster headache No significant differences in headache days reduction (SMD = −0.159; 95% CI, − 0.357 to 0.04; p = 0.117) between nVNS and sham-device treatment.
TENS Stanak 2020 J Neurol Sci Impact of TENS on prevention and acute treatment of episodic and chronic migraine Reduction of migraine attacks (0.67 less migraine attacks per month), migraine days (1.74 less migraine days per month), headache days (2.28 less headache days per month). Concerning acute treatment, significant reduction of pain at 1/2/24 h post-acute treatment.
Tao 2018 J Headache Pain TENS in randomized controlled trials for migraine Significant reduction of monthly headache days (SMD: −0.48; 95% CI: − 0.73 to - 0.23; P < 0.001)
  1. M1 primary motor cortex, ONS occipital nerve stimulation, RCT randomized control trial, rTMS repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation, SMD standardized mean difference, tDCS transcranial direct current stimulation, TENS transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation, VNS vagus nerve stimulation
\