Elasticity of neck muscles in cervicogenic headache

Abstract

Aim. To compare the elasticity of the sternocleidomastoid and trapezius muscles in patients with cervicogenic headache and in healthy volunteers. Methods. The medical history of 23 patients with cervicogenic headache was taken with a focus on pain characteristics. Elasticity of the sternocleidomastoid and trapezius muscles was measured by using shear wave elastography. Results were then compared with 23 healthy volunteers. Results. The sternocleidomastoid muscle was significantly stiffer in patients with cervicogenic headache compared to healthy volunteers. The stiffness increased gradually from the parasternal area, where it was negligible, to the area near the mastoid process where it reached over 20 kPa. There was no difference in the stiffness of the trapezius muscle. The stiffness of the sternocleidomastoid muscle does show a significant dependence on headache characteristics (e.g., laterality, severity, or frequency). Conclusion.The results of this pilot study show that patients with cervicogenic headache have a higher stiffness of the sternocleidomastoid muscle than healthy volunteers. These findings suggest that elastography could be used as a diagnostic tool in cervicogenic headache.

Is musculoskeletal pain associated with increased muscle stiffness? Evidence map and critical appraisal of muscle measurements using shear wave elastography

“…All but two studies used only linear transducers. Hashimoto et al (2022) used only a convex transducer (Hashimoto et al, 2022), while Sedlackova et al (2021) used both, a linear and a convex probe (Sedlackova et al, 2021). An overview of the extracted data is presented in Table 3.…”

“…The studies investigated idiopathic/nonspecific chronic neck pain (Dieterich et al, 2020; Wolff et al, 2022), tension‐type headache (Kolding et al, 2018), low back pain (Pinto et al, 2022), patellofemoral pain syndrome (Botanlioglu et al, 2013), knee osteoarthritis (Gökşen et al, 2021) and rheumatoid arthritis (Alfuraih et al, 2020). No difference or higher stiffness in symptomatic individuals was identified in eleven studies (36.6%) that investigated chronic neck pain (Taş et al, 2018), migraine (Hvedstrup et al, 2020), cervicogenic headache (Sedlackova et al, 2021), myofascial pain syndrome in the neck region (Valera‐Calero et al, 2021), rotator cuff tendinopathy (Leong et al, 2016), posterior shoulder pain (Itoigawa et al, 2022), low back pain (Masaki et al, 2017; Masaki et al, 2019; Murillo et al, 2019), patellofemoral pain syndrome (Botanlıoğlu et al, 2019) and medial tibial stress syndrome (Zhang et al, 2022). Higher stiffness in the symptomatic group was reported by nine studies (30.0%) that investigated whiplash injury (Aljinović et al, 2020), cervicogenic headache (Lin et al, 2022), temporomandibular disorder (Takashima et al, 2017), myofascial pain syndrome in the neck region (Ertekin et al, 2021), low back pain (Gao et al, 2020; Koppenhaver et al, 2020; Wang, Liu, et al, 2022), piriformis syndrome (Hashimoto et al, 2022) and knee osteoarthritis (Li et al, 2021).…”

“…The exclusion of muscle fascia from the measurement box was clearly stated in eight articles (26.6%) (Aljinović et al, 2020;Friede et al, 2020;Gökşen et al, 2021;Klauser et al, 2022;Koppenhaver et al, 2020;Murillo et al, 2019;Takashima et al, 2017;Zhang et al, 2022). The example images of eight more studies (26.6%) suggest the avoidance of fascia in the measurements (Botanlioglu et al, 2013;Botanlıoğlu et al, 2019;Ertekin et al, 2021;Leong et al, 2016;Li et al, 2021;Lin et al, 2022;Sedlackova et al, 2021;Taş et al, 2018) (Figure S1).…”

“…(2021) used both, a linear and a convex probe (Sedlackova et al, 2021). An overview of the extracted data is presented in Table 3.…”

Global trends in research on cervicogenic headache: a bibliometric analysis

“…The size of each dot indicates the number of papers corresponding to the keyword, with larger dots indicating a higher frequency of keyword occurrences. Two of the most regularly researched topics are "nerve" (50-52) and "neck" (53)(54)(55).…”