Submited on: 11 Apr 2015 08:11:56 AM GMT
Published on: 07 May 2015 07:49:08 AM GMT
 
Review
Posted by Ms. Emily Sudkamp on 20 Nov 2016 10:18:35 PM GMT Reviewed by Interested Peers

  • What are the main claims of the paper and how important are they?

    The article claims that some migraine sufferers do not always suffer from nausea, and that patient differences may include age, migraine type, and osmophobia.


  • Are these claims novel? If not, please specify papers that weaken the claims to the originality of this one.

    These claims appear to be novel.


  • Are the claims properly placed in the context of the previous literature?

    The claims are stated in the abstract and again in the results, and appear to be appropriately placed in the contest of the literature.


  • Do the results support the claims? If not, what other evidence is required?

    The results, while scattered, do seem to generally support the claim. The table in the article contains values with deviations that are greater than the value itself, which makes it difficult to tell trends in the data and also makes the data appear less reliable. The results were also explained as general trends, but with a small subject group, it is possible that these are not indicative of the entire population of migraine suffers, especially since within that small patient group, every trend that was claimed was not noted with every patient in the group. The results, however, did show statistically significant differences to support the claims that they made.


  • If a protocol is provided, for example for a randomized controlled trial, are there any important deviations from it? If so, have the authors explained adequately why the deviations occurred?

    The methods of the experiments involved a face to face survey of patients. The issue with this method is that it requires patients to recall subjective information from up to 3 months ago, and is therefore not reliable information. The population chosen were all recently diagnosed migraine sufferers, and exclusion criteria was listed.


  • Is the methodology valid? Does the paper offer enough details of its methodology that its experiments or its analyses could be reproduced?

    The experiment is reproducible, because given the ability to generate a similar patient population, that patient population would simply need to be surveyed again.


  • Would any other experiments or additional information improve the paper? How much better would the paper be if this extra work was done, and how difficult would such work be to do, or to provide?

    While one of the exclusion criteria was patients that overuse medication, it was not mentioned whether patients that take preventative medication or use medication at the first onset of a migraine in a normal fashion were included in the study. This would greatly skew the results if they were, and needs to be mentioned in the methods if it was a factor considered for patient selection, or it needs to be considered in the results if patients using these medications were allowed to enter the study.


  • Is this paper outstanding in its discipline? (For example, would you like to see this work presented in a seminar at your hospital or university? Do you feel these results need to be incorporated in your next general lecture on the subject?) If yes, what makes it outstanding? If not, why not?

    I would feel no need to have this work presented at my hospital or university, because the authors did not discuss how the results would affect treatment strategy. Currently, migraines are treated prophylactically, or at the onset of the migraine with analgesics, triptans, ergots, or other forms of pain relieving medications. Early prevention of a migraine is thought to aid in relieving the nausea that comes along with a migraine. Migraine is often co-treated with antiemetic drugs. If the authors had included something about differing treatment from the current standard of care, then I think it would be more likely to be considered outstanding.


  • Other Comments:

    N/A

  • Competing interests:
    .
  • Invited by the author to review this article? :
    No
  • Have you previously published on this or a similar topic?:
    No
  • References:

    .

  • Experience and credentials in the specific area of science:

    Student - College of Pharmacy.

  • How to cite:  Sudkamp E .Review[Review of the article 'Migraineurs without nausea: how do they differ from migraineurs with nausea? ' by Kim J].WebmedCentral 2016;7(11):WMCRW003326
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