Table 6.

Surgical intervention for trigeminal neuralgia³⁴

Intervention	Microvascular decompression	Stereotactic radiosurgery	Radiofrequency thermocoagulation	Balloon compression	Glycerol rhizolysis	Internal neurolysis
Efficacy data
Number of studies	21	8	7	5	3	1
Total number of patients	5149	1168	4533	755	289	26
Mean/median follow-up	3–10.9 years	3.1–5.6 years	3–9.3 years	4.2–10.7 years	4.5–8 years	3.6 years
Pain free at follow-up (5)	62%–89%	30%–66%	26%–82%	55%–80%	19%–58%	72%
Complications (%)
Facial sensory changes	3	16	19	15	40	96
Corneal hypoaesthesia	0.3	0	6.6	0.7	6.6	0
Hearing loss	1.8	0	0.1	0	0.3	0
Motor weakness	0	0	6.2	4.5	1.7	0
Cranial nerve palsy	4.1	0.2	0.8	1.6	0	0
Meningitis	0.4	0	0.02	5.7	0	0
CSF leak	2	0	0.1	0	0	3.8
Anaesthesia dolorosa	0.02	0	0.6	0.1	0.7	3.9
Mortality	0.3	0	0	0	0	0

CSF, cerebrospinal fluid.