Background Neurovascular compression (NVC) in patients with trigeminal neuralgia (TN) can be a factor of treatment outcome especially in microvascular decompression and stereotactic radiosurgery. No such effect has been reported in percutaneous radiofrequency rhizotomy (RF). This study is to investigate if NVC affects the efficacy of RF in patients with TN. Methods We retrospectively reviewed patients with TN who received RF in our institution. Pre-treatment MRI was performed in every patient, and the presence of NVC was reviewed independently by two physicians. The patients were followed up at least for a year after the treatment. Pain severity was assessed with numerical rating scale (NRS). Results Sixty-two patients were included in the study. All the patients had single-sided lesion, and 35 patients had NVC. There was no significant difference between these two groups of patients in terms of gender distribution, age, and pre-treatment pain severity. Comparable pain severity improvement was found in one-year follow-up between these two groups (NRS 7.93 ± 0.492 without compression vs. 7.57 ± 0.451 with compression, p = 0.600). No significant difference in post-treatment pain severity at one year between these two patient groups (NRS 1.37 ± 0.466 without compression vs. 1.66 ± 0.458 with compression, p = 0.667) was found. Conclusions For patients with TN treated by RF, the presence of NVC or not is not likely to affect the one-year pain control rate.

A significant number of patients suffers from refractory trigeminal neuralgia (TN) after receiving microvascular decompression (MVD) or other neuro-destructive procedure such as gamma knife radiosurgery (GKRS). This study aims to demonstrate a remediable, reproducible approach to treating refractory pain effectively by percutaneous radiofrequency trigeminal rhizotomy (RF-TR).A total of 392 patients with TN were treated by RF-TR during the past 10 years. Among these patients, 48 cases who had received either MVD, GKRS alone, or a combination of both were assigned to group A. Those who had not received any form of treatment (125 patients) or failed to respond medically (130 patients) were assigned as the control group (group B). All the RF-TR were performed by a single surgeon with the aid of intraoperative computed tomography (iCT)-based neuronavigation with magnetic resonance (MR) image fusion. The outcome measure was the numerical rating scale (NRS) expressed subjectively by patients. The paired Student t test and the analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) were used for statistical analysis.In group A, 21 of 24 patients (88%) had significant improvement (NRS change ≥5) in facial pain after RF-TR. The average NRS score was 9.75 ± 0.53 before the procedure and 1.92 ± 3.35 post-treatment (significant NRS decrease [P = .000]). On the other hand, in group B, 226 of 255 patients (89%) also had dramatic amelioration of facial pain after RF-TR. The average NRS score was 9.46 ± 0.69 before the procedure and 1.62 ± 2.85 post-treatment (7.84 ± 2.82 in NRS decrease [P = .008]). By using a univariate ANCOVA, no statistical significance was found in NRS score improvement between the two groups.Repeated MVD and GKRS for refractory TN may be less desirable due to a greater risk of mortality (up to 0.8%) and morbidity (4% of serious complications). Conversely, RF-TR administration with the novel navigation technique by using iCT and MR image fusion is free from any remarkable and irreversible morbidities. In this study, RF-TR not only provided an alternative and effective strategy if TN recurred but also resulted in the same NRS score improvement regardless of the status of prior treatment.

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