Microinfarction in classic migraine? A study with magnetic resonance imaging findings.

By means of magnetic resonance imaging we investigated a total of 45 patients suffering from classic migraine; 25 patients had been treated in our department for classic migraine over the past 2 years (group A), and 20 other patients investigated between 1976 and 1984 were reexamined for this study (group B). Thirty-two age- and roughly sex-matched healthy volunteers underwent magnetic resonance imaging and served as controls (group C). There was a trend for patients with classic migraine to have more subcortical patchy lesions on T2-weighted magnetic resonance imaging. In a comparison of our control subjects and patients with a history of greater than 20 attacks of classic migraine taken from groups A and B, this difference in number of lesions was significant (p = 0.02). The results suggest that patchy lesions in patients with classic migraine should be interpreted with particular caution before diagnosing a demyelinating disease since the lesions could be ischemic in origin.