ISOLATED HEADACHE AS THE PRESENTING CLINICAL MANIFESTATION OF INTRACRANIAL TUMORS - A PROSPECTIVE-STUDY

We prospectively studied over two years the incidence of headache as t he initial and isolated clinical manifestation of adult patients suffe ring from intracranial tumors (n = 183). Fifteen patients (8%) exhibit ed headache as their first and isolated clinical manifestation Age, se x, neoplasm localization, or pathological diagnosis did not correlate with the presence of headache. Posterior fossa location and hydrocepha lus, though not reaching statistical significance, were more frequent in patients who presented with headache as the first symptom. At the m oment of diagnosis, 59 (31%) of the patients admitted to headache, tho ugh only 1 out of the 15 patients starting as headache still had this symptom as the only manifestation. From our experience in adults, isol ated headache for longer than 10 weeks will only exceptionally be seco ndary to an intracranial neoplasm.