Why carry out this study?

Occipital nerve stimulation (ONS) is used to treat therapy-resistant chronic migraine.

Clinical use has resulted in a wide intraindividual and interindividual variation of clinical efficacy.

The aim of this study was to analyze a potential relationship between sociodemographic variables, headache parameters, perceived sensory quality, perceived sensory location, as well as clinical efficacy.

What was learned from the study?

The ONS-induced sensory location, the size of the spatial sensory field, as well as the sensory quality are significantly correlated with the reported clinical effectiveness.

The results suggest that, besides surgical technique, the individual and continuous programming of the stimulation parameters is clinically relevant in increasing the therapeutic effectiveness.