Materials and Methods
Population
A total of 35 patients (31 female, 4 male) were studied after
giving informed consent. The local ethics committee approved
the study protocol. Inclusion criteria were (1) diagnosis
of migraine with/without aura according to the criteria
of the International Headache Society29 proven separately by
2 senior neurologists, (2) duration of migraine disease at least
2 years, and (3) monthly frequency of two to six attacks.
Exclusion criteria were (1) medication overuse headache or
another secondary headache; (2) comorbidity from migraine
and tension-type headache; (3) migraine preventive treatment
during the previous 3 months; (4) pregnancy; (5) arterial
hypertension; (6) other neurological, metabolic, and
pulmonary or psychiatric diseases; and (7) drug or alcohol
abuse or contraindications against acupuncture therapy.
The clinical effect was monitored by a headache diary
according to the guidelines of the German Migraine and
Headache Society. The patients were asked to document
their frequency of attacks and headache intensity and duration
in the diary on a daily basis. The diary was kept 6 weeks
before the first acupuncture session (pre-acupuncture phase),
during the 8 weeks of acupuncture treatment (acupuncture
phase), and 12 weeks after the end of acupuncture sessions
(postacupuncture phase). For evaluation, data of the preacupuncture
phase were used and compared with those of
the acupuncture phase (at the end of the 8-week treatment)
and the postacupuncture phase (12 weeks after ending of the
acupuncture phase).