Publications
APS Bulletin • Volume 16, Number 3, Fall 2006
Resource Reviews
John D. Loeser, MD, Department Editor
The Headaches, Third Edition
Reviewed by Mark Stillman, MD
J. Olesen, P.A.J. Goadsby, N.M. Ramadan, P. Tfelt-Hansen, and K.M.A. Welch (Eds.), Philadelphia, Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, 2006. Hardcover, 1084 pages, ISBN 0-7817-5400-3, $229.
An indication that a discipline in medicine has come of age is the appearance of a reference text that is state of the art and encyclopedic in breadth. The field of headache medicine is no exception; now in its third edition; The Headaches is a weighty and worthy tome.
Edited by five internationally recognized experts in the field, The Headaches is a collection of chapters on all aspects of headache and facial pain, written by over 175 authors. The book contains seven sections that are further subdivided into pathophysiology and mechanisms, clinical features, and management. The seven sections include general aspects of headaches, basic science, migraine headaches, tension-type and other primary headaches, secondary headaches, special problems in headaches and headache management, and a new section on headaches in adolescents and children. The last section has been long awaited in the 6 years since the publication of the second edition of this text.
There are new chapters on chronic headaches, surgical management of headache pain, stabbing headaches, sex-related headaches, hypnic headaches, hemicrania continua, new daily persistent headaches, and SUNCT (short-lasting unilateral neuralgiform headache attacks with conjunctival injection and tearing). Each chapter on a clinical headache subtype leads off with an operational or explicit definition according to the International Headache Society’s (IHS) International Classification of Headache Disorders, second edition (ICDH-II, 2004), as well as World Health Organization’s International Classification of Diseases, ninth edition (ICD-9). This particular embellishment emphasizes the attention being paid to taxonomy and classification, so important to an increasingly recognized field of clinical study. The current edition comprises 1,139 pages of carefully referenced text arranged into 139 chapters, representing an increase of seven chapters and over 140 pages over the second edition. In spite of this, the new edition is remarkably lighter!
The third edition of The Headaches comes at an auspicious time in the field of headache medicine, a little more than 1 year on the heels of the HIS’s ICDH-II publication. The publication of the first classification system in 1988, the ICDH-I, ushered the field out of the realm of an inaccurate descriptive science, and established a foundation for evidence-based clinical medicine. Not surprisingly, it occurred at a time when the scientific study of headaches was finally starting to catch up with the larger field of pain medicine. The Headaches will stand as a monument to how far the study of headache has advanced. It belongs in the libraries of medical centers, and medical and nursing schools, and would be a welcomed addition to the library of neurologists and other pain practitioners interested in advancing their knowledge about headaches.
Dr. Stillman is Head, Section of Headache and Facial Pain of the Department of Neurology, at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, Cleveland, OH.
Dr. Loeser is Professor of Neurological Surgery and Anesthesiology at the University of Washington, Seattle.