A growing number of clinical trials are testing Chinese acupuncture in the management of
headache disorders. Little is known, however, about the relationship between International
Headache Society diagnostic criteria and
traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) diagnosis in
primary headache disorders. We conducted a secondary analysis of the data of the prospective, controlled, blinded German acupuncture trials for
migraine and
tension-type headache. Data were collected from 1042
headache patients, of whom 633 were diagnosed with
migraine and 409 with
tension-type headache. We found that the diagnoses of
migraine and
tension-type headache were mirrored by different patterns of TCM diagnoses, with the patterns Liver Yang Rising, Liver Fire Rising, and Phlegm appearing to be best suited to differentiating between
migraine and
tension-type headache. Although not unexpected, given that the diagnosis of
primary headache disorders in both diagnostic systems is based largely on the nature and quality of patient-reported symptoms, this finding suggests that
migraine and
tension-type headache are associated with different patterns of TCM diagnosis.