Effectiveness of Greater Occipital Nerve and Supratrochlear Nerve Pulsed Radiofrequency Versus Botulinum Toxin Type A Injection in Chronic Migraine

Migraine is a common chronic neurovascular disorder ranked among the leading causes of disability worldwide, and its global burden has continued to rise over the past three decades, with prevalence increasing substantially between 1990 and 2021the global number of prevalent cases, incident cases, and DALYs for migraine increased by 58%, 42%, and 58% respectively from 1990 to 2021 (1). In 2021, migraine affected an estimated 1.2 billion people globally, and although tension-type headache was more prevalent, migraine caused greater disability (2). Chronic migraine, defined as headache occurring on 15 or more days per month for more than three months, with migrainous features on at least 8 days, represents a particularly disabling subtype that is frequently refractory to standard pharmacological prophylaxis (3). Pharmacologic treatment of chronic migraine often has limited efficacy, prompting growing interest in interventional and peripheral neuromodulatory approaches (4).

OnabotulinumtoxinA is currently the only FDA-approved interventional prophylactic therapy for chronic migraine, with efficacy established by class-one evidence from the PREEMPT clinical program (5). Although onabotulinumtoxinA is traditionally known for inhibiting muscle contraction, its efficacy in chronic migraine is now attributed to inhibition of SNARE-mediated vesicle trafficking in sensory as well as motor nerve terminals (6). However, treatment with onabotulinumtoxinA, while effective, must be repeated every three months for sustained relief and can impose a significant financial burden on patients (7), which has driven exploration of alternative peripheral procedures targeting the same pericranial sensory nerve distribution.