Earlier this month, I had the distinct pleasure of having a sit-down interview with Kenneth Mandato, the lead researcher for the migraine study and an interventional radiologist at Albany medical center, during the Society of Interventional Radiologists Annual meeting held here in Atlanta. During the interview we discussed the prevalence of migraines and a rather old (but underutilized) technique to treat these conditions. Mandato and a team of researchers from Albany Medical Center and the State University New York Empire State College (Saratoga Springs, New York), used a technique called image-guided intranasal sphenopalatine ganglion (SPG) blocks to give patients enough ongoing relief that they required less medication to relieve migraine pain.

Mandato said that the study shows that before treatment, patients reported a visual analogue scale of 8.25 with scores greater than four at least 15 days per month. The day after the SPG block patients' visual analogue scores were cut in half, to an average of 4.10 Thirty days after the procedure patients reported an average score of 5.25 a 36% decrease from pretreatment. About 88% of patients indicated that they required less or no migraine medication for ongoing relief.

Mandato seemed pretty happy about the results and the potential to do even more trials in the future to bolster the results. What was so impressive was the number of calls and media requests Mandato managed during his time at the conference. Migraines are a hot topic. Here's hoping interest in Mandato's work continues.