What is it about?
Trigeminal neuralgia is a common disease in clinic. There are many treatment methods in clinic. Gamma knife surgery (GKS) and microvascular decompression (MD), as an important treatment, have been widely used in clinical practice. However, their advantages and disadvantages are controversial. In this study, the authors retrospectively analyzed the clinical efficacy and associated complications in 115 patients treated with gamma knife surgery and 85 patients with MD. The purpose of this study is to provide an important reference for clinicians and TN patients to choose the appropriate treatment methods.
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Why is it important?
We found the relief rate of pain in MVD (95.4% patients) was significantly greater than GKS (88.7%) (P<0.01). Postoperative visual analog scale scores of the MVD were significantly reduced compared with those of patients treated with GKS at the same postoperative time points (P<0.01). Patients treated with GKS had a significantly increased rate of loss of corneal reflex compared with patients treated with MVD (P=0.002).
Perspectives
We think that GKS and MVD are safe and effective for patients with TN. The clinical outcomes of pain relief and reduction of pain recurrence were better with MVD. For GKS, the optimal radiation therapeutic dose range was 70–90 Gy, but brainstem radiation protection is recommended because it is very important to reduce neurological dysfunction.
Qi Lin Huang
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Efficacy of stereotactic gamma knife surgery and microvascular decompression in the treatment of primary trigeminal neuralgia: a retrospective study of 220 cases from a single center, Journal of Pain Research, July 2016, Dove Medical Press,
DOI: 10.2147/jpr.s110161.
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