diff --git a/docling/backend/asciidoc_backend.py b/docling/backend/asciidoc_backend.py
index 3c41810..5328e8d 100644
--- a/docling/backend/asciidoc_backend.py
+++ b/docling/backend/asciidoc_backend.py
@@ -287,7 +287,7 @@ class AsciiDocBackend(DeclarativeDocumentBackend):
 
     #   =========   Section headers
     def _is_section_header(self, line):
-        return re.match(r"^==+", line)
+        return re.match(r"^==+\s+", line)
 
     def _parse_section_header(self, line):
         match = re.match(r"^(=+)\s+(.*)", line)