Radiofrequency thermocoagulation for the treatment of trigeminal neuralgia

xlomafota13 shared this article with you from Inoreader Radiofrequency thermocoagulation for the treatment of trigeminal neuralgia Via Experimental and therapeutic medicine Exp Ther Med. 2022 Jan;23(1):17. doi: 10.3892/etm.2021.10939. Epub 2021 Oct 30. ABSTRACT Although microvascular decompression (MVD) should be considered as the first-line treatment for classic trigeminal neuralgia (TN) owing to neurovascular compression of the trigeminal nerve, an increasing number of surgeons prefer radiofrequency thermocoagulation (RFT). RFT is a Gasserian ganglion-level ablative intervention that may achieve immediate pain relief for TN. It is used for emergency management when MVD is not suitable for the patient. As the gold surgical standard of classic trigeminal neuralgia, MVD has the advantage of longer efficacy. However, there are currently no high-quality controlled trials to evaluate the efficacy of MVD and RFT. For the present systematic review, the PubMed, Embase and Cochrane databases (all entries up until July 31, 2020) were searched to identify studies related to RFT in order to provide valuable informat ion for clinical decision-making. The efficacy of the RFT method was evaluated in terms of the initial pain relief percentage, recurrence rate and follow-up time. Furthermore, the incidence rate of various postoperative complications was retrieved. RFT was used for a wider range of applications than MVD, including use for primary (owing to neurovascular compression of the trigeminal nerve), idiopathic and secondary (due to primary neurological diseases) TN, and provided a high rate of initial pain relief and long-term pain control. Although this method has several side effects, the incidence of complications could be reduced by precise cannulation. Furthermore, the complications that occurred were not permanent. Thus, RFT is a safe and effective minimally invasive method of pain relief for patients with TN. PMID:34815769 | PMC:PMC8593925 | DOI:10.3892/etm.2021.10939 View on the web Inoreader. Take back control of your news feed. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook.