This systematic review threw light on the prevalence and characteristics of new-onset post-stroke headache. It was evident that the headache could escalate morbidity after the stroke, more studies could offer better validation.

There is a limited understanding of the association of headache with ischemic stroke, a systematic review of prior conducted studies was carried out to investigate the prevalence and characteristics of new-onset post-stroke headache.

An extensive search of online libraries, Medline and PubMed was done. Out of 1,812 shortlisted articles, 50 were included in the systematic review. The meta-analysis and meta-regression were applied over 20 studies.

It was identified that headache was prevalent in 6-44% ischemic stroke patients. The headache features were tension-type mostly (moderate to severe), which became chronic afterwards. The pooled prevalence of 0.14 with 95% CI (0.07-0.23) with the heterogeneity of studies was shown by the meta-analysis.

The meta-regression revealed that prevalence varied with the change in geographical locations of the studies. A higher prevalence was found in studies carried out in Europe and North America as compared to studies carried out in the Middle East and Asia, results presented in Table 1 below.

On the crude calculation of odds ratio (OR), it was found that 7 studies on posterior circulation stroke and 11 studies with female sex had a greater odds of headache associated with ischemic stroke as shown in Table 2.

One outcome is clear that the headache is commonly observed either before or at the onset of ischemic stroke. Patient characteristics could also impact the morbidity caused due to post-stroke headache. Studies with more validation to the association of headache to ischemic stroke would be helpful for its effective management.