Is irritable bowel syndrome a significant comorbid disorder among patients with tension type headache?

الملخص EN

Background and aim : Comorbidity between tension type headache TTH and other disorders is a topic of interest.

At the present time, no study examine comorbidity of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) with TTH as separate entity ; presence of such association have great impact in diagnosis and management of TTH patients for which this prospective cross sectional comparative controlled study have been conducted. Methodology : in this Cross Sectional Controlled Comparative Study, 360 patients ; 200 female and 160 male ; age ranges from 15-60 years with diagnosis of TTH depending on International Headache Society (IHS) criteria have been enrolled and compared with age and gender matched 200 controlled individuals ; 116 female and 84 male.

The prevalence of IBS (diagnosis made depending on symptoms based criteria Rome II and III criteria) among 2 group were estimated with further evaluation of IBS prevalence made in relation to age, gender and type of TTH ; Statistical analysis done by means of person Chi-square tests with P value < 0.05 was used as a level of significance. Results : TTH is more common in woman , with female to male ratios of 1.25 : 1, TTH affecting age peaks between 20 and 60 years.

There was significant high prevalence of IBS among TTH group versus control healthy group (79.7 %, 10 % respectively ; p value was 0.0001) with very high significant prevalence among chronic TTH versus episodic TTH (93.3 %, 72.9 % respectively ; p value was0.000056).

The prevalence of IBS among TTH group was more common among female versus male (62.7 %, 37.3 %, respectively).The age peak affected was among thirties and forties (29.6 % and 28.6 %, respectively) the sex and gender differences were not significant statistically. Conclusion : patients with TTH have significant associations with IBS as comorbid disorder, such relationships is important from diagnostic and therapeutic point of view.

Strength of this association suggests common pathophysiologic mechanisms which needs further evaluation in future.