Abstract
IHS in 2018 – Honorary Secretary's report
2018 was a very busy year for IHS, with many activities and key publications. The most important activities are listed below. All comments are welcome (see my email at the end of this report).
ICHD-3
Following years of dedicated hard work by the Classification Committee and Working Group members, the International Classification of Headache Disorders 3rd edition was published in Cephalalgia (1) and is freely available for download on the IHS and Cephalalgia websites. Thanks must be extended to Professors Jes Olesen and Tim Steiner for their tireless work for this committee on this widely-used and highly respected publication. Translations have subsequently been published in Chinese, German, Korean and Spanish and are available on the IHS website; translations into other languages are ongoing.
An online version of ICHD-3 can be found at https://www.ichd-3.org/. Additionally, a short version of the ICHD-3 has been prepared and can be found on the IHS website; this version is useful for non-experts and primary care physicians in particular. We are also working on a slide kit of ICHD-3.
Guidelines
The Clinical Trials Committee has also been working hard and published a set of guidelines: “Guidelines of the IHS for controlled trials of preventive treatment of chronic migraine in adults” (2). Two further sets of guidelines, on acute treatments of migraine and paediatric guidelines have been completed and will be published in Cephalalgia during 2019.
These guidelines are also freely available on the IHS and Cephalalgia websites, and thanks go to Cristina Tassorelli, Hans-Christoph Diener and committee members for their hard work in developing these guidelines over the past year.
Cephalalgia and Cephalalgia Reports
IHS was delighted to see the Cephalalgia impact factor for 2017 rise to 3.882 (2016: 3.609). Cephalalgia is now ranked no. 43 out of 197 in Clinical Neurology and 76 out of 261 in Neuroscience journals. Thanks are due to Cephalalgia Editor-in-Chief Professor Arne May, the Cephalalgia Editorial Board and all the reviewers for their tireless work on behalf of Cephalalgia and the society.
2018 saw the launch of Cephalalgia Reports, an open-access silhouette title to Cephalalgia providing an international forum for original research papers, review articles, clinical perspectives, case reports, technical reports and short communications. Cephalalgia Reports actively encourages high-quality papers in emerging observations with translational potential not yet realised, reports limited to regional relevance that may validate and add to existing studies, RCTs with negative outcomes, confirmatory studies, technical reports, articles with a more clinical emphasis, pilot trials that may stimulate therapeutic innovation and scientifically rigorous pathophysiological and pharmacological studies. The first article was published in March 2018, and over 25 articles have now been published.
Please visit the Cephalalgia Reports website if you would like to submit your work to this exciting new publication: https://journals.sagepub.com/home/rep
Vancouver Declaration
Following the hugely successful first Global Patient Advocacy Symposium held in Vancouver, Canada, in September 2017, which brought together patients, patient advocates, patient advocacy organizations, healthcare professionals, pharmaceutical manufacturers, scientists, and regulatory agencies to advance issues of importance to patients affected by headache worldwide, the Vancouver Declaration on Global Headache Patient Advocacy 2018 was published in Cephalalgia (3). The Declaration forms the group's consensus around the issues discussed during the summit, from which a series of statements was developed.
Grants and fellowships
IHS was pleased to continue to award grants and fellowships to junior colleagues in 2018:
IHS Fellowship
Olivier Brock, Belgium. Research title: The role of the visual thalamus in migraine. Institution: King's College London; mentor: Philip Holland.
Anisa Dehghani, Iran (working in Turkey). Research title: Parenchymal neuroinflammation and pain behaviour upon optogenetically-induced cortical spreading depolarization in mice. Institution: Leiden University Medical Center; mentor: Arn van den Maagdenberg.
IHS Headache Trainee programme
Nina Khizanishvili, Georgia. Institution: University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany; mentor: Zaza Katsarava.
Alaa Hafez, Egypt. Institution: King's College London, UK; mentor: Peter Goadsby.
IHS Short-Stay scholarships
Stephania Bohorquez, Colombia. Institution: Vall d'Hebron University Hospital, Spain; mentor: Patricia Pozo Rosich.
Selenge Enkhtuya, Mongolia and Kostiantyn Stepanchenko, Ukraine: Institution: Pediatric Hospital Bambino Gesu, Italy; mentor: Massimiliano Valeriani.
IHS Master of Headache Disorders research grants
David Garcia Azorin, Spain.
Abdul Malik, Pakistan.
Nooshin Yamani, Iran.
Educational activities
During 2018, IHS continued to support successful educational activities, including a meeting on childhood and adolescence headache in Moldova, two Visiting Professors at headache sessions during the Colombian Association of Neurology meeting and BALCONE 2018 in Lithuania, and educational courses on secondary headache disorders at both the Migraine Trust Symposium in London and at the European Headache Federation congress in Florence. Also, in conjunction with the Migraine Trust meeting in September, another iHEAD academy was held where young researchers from all over Europe gathered to learn and discuss recent research findings. IHS was also pleased to support the third MENA Headache Conference, which was held in Cairo, Egypt, the seventh ARCH (Asian Regional Consortium on Headache) meeting in South Korea, both in November 2018, and the Headache Master School in Australia. For this Master School, 134 delegates registered; 76 delegates were from Australia and New Zealand, and 58 were from Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam. The educational programme includes reading and questions before and after the weekend meeting, and this formal learning programme is expected to improve headache expertise, care and collaboration between future headache leaders in that region.
LTB Child and Adolescent Epidemiology studies
IHS is supporting the Lifting the Burden (LTB) campaign for paediatric epidemiological studies all over the world; three studies are ongoing in Zambia, Iran and Mongolia.
Membership
IHS thanks all its members for their support during 2018. Our members are key to the success of the society and its activities. We also welcome new national member societies, most recently the Singapore Headache Society, the Asociación Mexicana de Cefaleas y Migraña (Mexico) and the Myanmar Headache Society. This brings the number of IHS Affiliate Member Societies to 53.
2019
In 2019 we look forward to the 19th International Headache Congress (IHC), to be held in Dublin, Ireland, from 5–8 September 2019. The programme is finalised, and registration is open. Immediately prior to IHC 2019 we will host a second Global Patient Advocacy Summit (GPAS) to bring together the participants and update them on the activities since the first GPAS and news of the IHS Global Patient Advocacy Coalition (IHS-GPAC). Our educational activities will continue with a fifth European iHEAD, also prior to IHC 2019, and IHS is continuing to offer grants and fellowships.
Thanks
All these activities and achievements of IHS would have been impossible without the help of our secretary, Carol Taylor. She is the first to be thanked when we look at the big steps forward IHS is making. I also thank all our members who are engaged voluntarily in their spare time.
References
19th International Headache Congress, Dublin, Ireland, September 2019
The 2019 International Headache Congress (IHC) will take place from 5–8 September 2019, in Dublin, Ireland.
The title of our meeting is “Dawn of new headache treatments”. This may be considered a very bold statement, but we are entering an entirely novel and exciting chapter in migraine treatment. The molecular era has arrived. Antibodies against CGRP and the CGRP receptor are on the market. This is the result of many years of hard work. It is most important for our patients, as we can now provide them with a specific molecular treatment for their migraine that has a good response rate with very few side effects.
Additional novel treatments are also on the way for which data will hopefully be presented during the congress. The Presidential Symposium, titled “Novel Ways in Migraine Therapy”, will feature cutting-edge research on the therapeutic potential of molecules that target pathophysiological mechanisms which differ from those targeted by drugs that directly disrupt CGRP signaling. Other key sessions will be the IHS Special Lecture, the Cephalalgia Award Lecture, sessions on CRGP and CGRP mABs, and a joint symposium with IASP. For the first time, the programme will include sessions we have entitled “One topic, two views” where key researchers will present their differing views based on state-of-the-art data on selected topics.
In Dublin, we will present delegates with the most up-to-date research in basic and clinical science. We will provide a broad understanding of the scientific background of primary headache disorders, thus ensuring an exciting future for headache medicine.
Prior to the congress, we will hold teaching courses on the hypothalamus, the neurobiology of medication overuse headache, migraine comorbidities and the challenges they add to diagnosis and management, animal models of headache and the value they add to headache medicine, biomarkers of migraine in body fluids, research for early-career scientists and clinicians, and primary and secondary considerations for clinicians.
Ireland is a wonderful “green island” and is a place known to give a warm welcome to all visitors. The country is full of interesting history and there are many sights to visit, both in Dublin and the surrounding countryside. IHC 2019 will take place at the Convention Centre Dublin, which is on the river Liffey. This area is surrounded by hotels and is within a short walking distance of this beautiful and historic city. Trinity College (the Book of Kells), St Stephens Green, Kilmainham Gaol, and the Guinness Brewery are only a few of the famous attractions on your doorstep. The conference will provide an ideal opportunity to meet colleagues and make new friends.
Please join us in Dublin, which we are sure will be a perfect venue for the congress.
We look forward to welcoming you to the emerald isle.