Familial occurrence of migraine with aura in a population-based study

OBJECTIVE: To better define a possible genetic basis for migraine with aura (MWA). METHODS: We investigated the familial occurrence of migraine with aura in a sample of (MWA) subjects recruited from an epidemiologic study of migraine with aura involving the general population. The sample with migraine with aura (n = 26) was selected out of a total of 1392 subjects (842 women and 550 men) representative of the general population aged 18 to 65 years in the southern Italian town of San Severo. A family history of migraine with aura was determined via direct interviews with all living first-degree relatives of the 26 subjects who could be reached by investigators, 119 people: 71 women and 48 men. The diagnosis of migraine with aura was made according to the 1988 International Headache Society (IHS) criteria. RESULTS: Of the 26 subjects with migraine with aura, 7 (6 women and 1 man) had a positive family history, with a total of 7 first-degree relatives affected by the disease (1 mother, 2 fathers, 1 brother, 1 sister, and 2 children). Based on the lifetime prevalence rate of migraine with aura (1.6%) in the San Severo general population, the relative risk of migraine with aura in the first-degree relatives of the subjects was 3.68 (4.16 for women and 2.77 for men). CONCLUSION: Our subjects' relative risk rate for familial occurrence of migraine with aura was similar to that reported by one investigator, but markedly lower than that reported by another group.