Micro vascular decompression for trigeminal neuralgia: Preliminary experience

Abstract

Objective: To assess the outcome of micro vascular decompression (MVD) for trigeminal neuralgia (TN) in the initial experience. Methods: Between March 2016 and March 2018, 16 patients who were affected, by trigeminal neuralgia and underwent micro vascular decompression in the Department of Neurosurgery at tertiary centre were enrolled in the study. A Barrow Neurological Institute pain score was calculated pre and post-operatively for all patients. Results: During a 24-month period, 16 patients underwent MVD for TN. All patients were operated on by the author. The patients included 11 females and 5 males, with a mean age of 50 years. The mean time from diagnosis to surgery was 3.5 years. The mean time from first neurosurgical clinic review and operation was 204 days, all the patients had a vascular loop identified on pre-operative MRI, all patients underwent micro vascular decompression. There was an average follow up of 16.37 months. A post-operative Barrow score of ≤3 was considered a satisfactory outcome, out of 16 patients 15 had satisfactory outcome. Conclusions: We consider MVD to be gold standard treatment option in patients with TN, refractory to medical management.

Keywords

• micro vascular decompression
• trigeminal neuralgia
• multiple sclerosis
• medical management