Migraines affect 13 percent of the U.S. population, with approximately one person in every four households affected by this debilitating chronic illness. Nearly half of migraine sufferers experience severe headaches for one to four full days within any given three-month period, resulting in diminished quality of life and job performance.

Bahman Guyuron, MD, FACS, Chairman of the Department of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at University Hospitals, has been studying migraine headaches and surgical treatments since 1999. His discoveries have garnered international attention and, very recently, a three million dollar research grant from the Prentiss Foundation.

An incidental discovery sparked Dr. Guyuron’s interest in migraine headache research. In late 1999, one of his patients reported complete relief from her migraine headaches six months after forehead rejuvenation surgery. At first Dr. Guyuron thought it was a coincidence, until several more patients reported similar experiences.

Intrigued by the possibilities, Dr. Guyuron conducted a retrospective study of 314 patients who underwent the same surgery from 1989 to 1999. He found that of 39 patients with migraine headaches who had undergone a forehead aesthetic procedure, 15 (38.5 percent) reported complete disappearance of their headaches and 16 patients (41 percent) observed “significant improvement.” This is defined as a 50 percent or more reduction in severity, frequency and duration of migraine headaches.

Dr. Guyuron then designed a pilot study in which surgery was performed solely for the treatment of migraine headaches. Using Botox to identify those patients who would likely have a successful outcome following surgery, Dr. Guyuron operated on 22 patients. Seven to 16 months later, 21 of the 22 patients reported significant benefits from the surgery. Highly encouraged, Dr. Guyuron designed subsequent studies with two neurologists to identify additional migraine headache trigger sites and to develop surgical techniques to deactivate them.

In 2002, a comprehensive study was completed with very positive outcomes at one year after surgery. Ninety – two percent of patients demonstrated either complete elimination (35 percent) or significant improvement (57 percent) of migraine headaches. Five-year follow-up data has confirmed that these results are essentially unchanged.

A more recent study included a placebo surgery control arm. On a random basis, some patients underwent real surgery and some had sham surgery, medically validating the findings from the previous studies.