Migraine Common in Women With Macromastia, Headache

TUESDAY, Feb. 17, 2026 (HealthDay News) — Most women with macromastia and headache pursuing reduction surgery screen positive for migraine, according to a study published online Feb. 2 in Cephalalgia Reports.

Kristyn Spera Pocock, M.D., from the Wake Forest University School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and colleagues conducted an observational study to characterize headache features in women with macromastia undergoing reduction. Participants were aged 18 years and older and had four or more headache-days/month.

Baseline headaches were frequent and disabling for the 34 participants (median, 10 days/months; mean pain intensity, 6.2/10; mean Migraine Disability Assessment, 49.8). Forty percent had allodynia; 56 percent screened high-risk for obstructive sleep apnea. Ninety-one percent screened positive for migraine, and 100 percent reported red-flag features. Significant improvements were seen in headache frequency (incidence rate ratio, 0.23), pain intensity, (mean, −3.0), disability (mean, −32.9), allodynia (mean, −2.1), and obstructive sleep apnea risk (odds ratio, 0.19) postoperatively, and were sustained through 19 to 28 months.

“Headache is a common complaint in women with macromastia, or enlarged breast tissue, pursuing breast reduction surgery, yet it”s often not evaluated in depth,” Pocock said in a statement. “Our findings suggest we may be missing migraine in this population, and that matters for diagnosis, treatment, and quality of life.”

Abstract/Full Text