Introduction: The revised International Headache Society (IHS) criteria for cluster headache are: attacks of severe or very severe, strictly unilateral pain, which is orbital, supraorbital, or temporal pain, lasting 15-180 minutes and occurring from once every other day to eight times daily.
Methods and outcomes: We conducted a systematic review and aimed to answer the following clinical questions: What are the effects of interventions to abort and to prevent cluster headache? We searched: Medline, Embase, The Cochrane Library and other important databases up to September 2006 (Clinical Evidence reviews are updated periodically, please check our website for the most up-to-date version of this review). We included harms alerts from relevant organisations such as the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).
Results: We found 29 systematic reviews, RCTs or observational studies that met our inclusion criteria. We performed a GRADE evaluation of the quality of evidence for interventions.
Conclusions: In this systematic review we present information relating to the effectiveness and safety of the following interventions: baclofen (oral), botulinum toxin (intramuscular), capsaicin (intranasal), chlorpromazine, civamide (intranasal), clonidine (transdermal), ergotamine and dihydroergotamine (oral or intranasal), gabapentin (oral), greater occipital nerve injections (betamethasone plus xylocaine), high-dose and high-flow-rate oxygen, hyperbaric oxygen, leuprolide, lidocaine (intranasal), lithium (oral), melatonin, methysergide (oral), octreotide (subcutaneous), pizotifen (oral), prednisolone (oral), sodium valproate (oral), sumatriptan (oral, subcutaneous and intranasal), TCAs, topiramate (oral), verapamil, and zolmitriptan (oral).