Case Report
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2020. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Clin Cases. Jun 26, 2020; 8(12): 2629-2633
Published online Jun 26, 2020. doi: 10.12998/wjcc.v8.i12.2629
Headache and sick sinus syndrome: A case report
You-Cai Bi, Liang Gong
You-Cai Bi, Department of Neurology, Zigong Fourth People’s Hospital, Zigong 643000, Sichuan Province, China
Liang Gong, Department of Neurology, Chengdu Second People’s Hospital, Chengdu 650017, Sichuan Province, China
Author contributions: Bi YC designed and summarized the literature, drafted and wrote the manuscript; Gong L revised the manuscript critically for intellectual content; All authors provided intellectual input to the study and approved the final version of the manuscript.
Supported by the Sichuan Science and Technology Program, No. 2020YJ0197; and the Chengdu Medical Research Project, No. 2019115.
Informed consent statement: Written informed consent was obtained from the patient for publication of this report and any accompanying images.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
CARE Checklist (2016) statement: The authors have read the CARE Checklist (2016), and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the CARE Checklist (2016).
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Liang Gong, MD, PhD, Assistant Professor, Doctor, Department of Neurology, Chengdu Second People’s Hospital, No. 10, Qinyunnan Road, Chengdu 650017, Sichuan Province, China. cd2gongliang@126.com
Received: March 16, 2020
Peer-review started: March 16, 2020
First decision: April 29, 2020
Revised: May 12, 2020
Accepted: June 3, 2020
Article in press: June 3, 2020
Published online: June 26, 2020
Abstract
BACKGROUND

Sick sinus syndrome is a common disease in cardiology. Typical symptoms include palpitations, dizziness, shortness of breath, chest tightness, and amaurosis. However, to date, there are no known reports of sick sinus syndrome presenting with headache. Whether there is a correlation between headache and sick sinus syndrome merits further research. In this report, we describe a case of headache induced by sick sinus syndrome.

CASE SUMMARY

A 73-year-old female patient presented to our department with the chief complaint of recurrent paroxysmal headache for more than 7 years. The patient described paroxysmal palpations, usually headache occurring after palpitation. Her blood pressure was normal when the most recent headache occurred. A magnetic resonance imaging study and magnetic resonance angiography of the head at another center were normal. A clinical neurological examination was negative. A 24-h Holter electrocardiogram monitoring study showed sick sinus syndrome. The patient received dual chamber pacing implantation and was administered drug therapy to control ventricular rate. The patient’s paroxysmal headaches and palpitations had resolved within 1 year, confirmed via a follow-up telephone call.

CONCLUSION

After dual-chamber pacing implantation and drug therapy administration to control the ventricular rate, the patient’s paroxysmal headaches and palpitations had resolved within 1 year, confirmed via a follow-up telephone call. We believe that the headaches were related to the patient’s sick sinus syndrome.

Keywords: Headache, Palpitations, Sick sinus syndrome, Differential diagnosis, Case report, Electrocardiogram

Core tip: We report a patient who had headaches induced by sick sinus syndrome. To the best of our knowledge, this finding has not been previously reported. It provides new ideas for clinical diagnosis and treatment of both headache and sick sinus syndrome in the future.