Mammography-related breast pain is associated with migraine.

There is little information about the perception of experimentally induced extracephalic pain in migraine. This study investigates the associations between mammography-related pain and migraine. A neurologist clinically assessed 630 women aged 40-74 years attending a population-based breast cancer screening programme. Headache criteria proposed by the International Headache Society were used. Mammography-related pain was measured on a 100-mm visual analogue scale. High levels of mammography-related pain were associated with migraine. This association was related to mammographic examination during the early follicular phase and menopausal status, but unrelated to differences in age, compression pressure, education, current use of hormonal replacement therapy, anxiety, and recent use of analgesics and antimigraine medication. The results of the present study indicate that migraine and compression-induced breast pain are related.