Surgeries Offer Relief for Neuralgia Pain in MS

Oct 17, 2017 – Holland

Stereotactic radio surgery (SRS) and radiofrequency rhizotomy (RFR) provide effective pain relief for trigeminal neuralgia (TN) in the setting of multiple sclerosis (MS), according to a recent study. While initial surgical cost of RFR and SRS were different, subsequent and total cost of the 2 modalities were not significantly different. Researchers evaluated patients with TN and MS (n=17) who were treated since 1997. Patients either underwent SRS (n=7) or RFR (n=10) as their index procedure and were evaluated as a group based on this first procedure. The median age of patients at first operation in each group was 58.5 ± 10.9 and 63.5 ± 7.5 for SRS and RFR, respectively. They found:

Overall, 71% of patients had an excellent or good initial pain outcome.
Over time, 60% of RFR and 29% of SRS patients required additional procedures to obtain satisfactory pain relief.

The patients who underwent RFR as their index procedure required a significantly higher number of procedures to achieve adequate pain relief (RFR=2.7 vs SRS=2.0).
Citation:

Holland MT, Teferi N, Noeller J, et al. Stereotactic radio surgery and radio frequency rhizotomy for trigeminal neuralgia in multiple sclerosis: A single institution experience. [Published online ahead of print September 7, 2017]. Clin Neurol Neurosurg. doi:10.1016/j.clineuro.2017.09.004.

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