Home Diseases and Conditions Trigeminal Neuralgia

Trigeminal Neuralgia

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Development Stage

Early Stage

Focused ultrasound research is in the laboratory phase and is not yet available for patients.

Clinical Trials

Focused ultrasound for this condition is being researched in clinical trials.

International Approval

Focused ultrasound is approved to treat this condition outside the US. Patients can seek commercial treatment at participating international sites.

FDA Approved

The US Food and Drug Administration has approved focus ultrasound for this condition. Patients can seek commercial treatment at participating sites.

Early Stage

Clinical Trials

International

FDA Approved

Focused ultrasound is approved to treat this condition outside the US. Patients can seek commercial treatment at participating international sites. There are also clinical trials that may be of interest to patients.

Focused Ultrasound Therapy

Focused ultrasound is a noninvasive, therapeutic technology with the potential to improve the quality of life and decrease the cost of care for patients with trigeminal neuralgia. This novel technology focuses beams of ultrasound energy precisely and accurately on targets deep in the brain without damaging surrounding normal tissue.

How it Works
Where the beams converge, focused ultrasound produces precise ablation (thermal destruction of tissue), which enables trigeminal neuralgia to be treated without surgery.

Advantages
The primary options for treatment of trigeminal neuropathy include medication or invasive surgery.

For certain patients, focused ultrasound could provide a noninvasive alternative to surgery with less risk of complications – such as surgical wound healing or infection – at a lower cost. It can reach the desired target without damaging surrounding tissue and is repeatable, if necessary.

Clinical Trials

The Foundation updates these pages regularly, but with the increasing number of clinical trials, we want to be sure that our audience has the latest information available. Therefore, we also added the website search information for the above trials. If you click here, it will take you to the latest information available from https://www.clinicaltrials.gov/.

See a list of treatment sites
See a list of laboratory research sites

Regulatory Approval and Reimbursement 

Trigeminal neuralgia treatment in the US has not been approved by regulatory bodies or covered by medical insurance companies. In Europe, trigeminal neuralgia has been treated under the neuropathic pain CE Mark.

Notable Papers

Stern JI, Ali R, Chiang CC, Robertson CE. Pathophysiology and Management of Refractory Trigeminal Neuralgia. Curr Neurol Neurosci Rep. 2024 Dec 12;25(1):10. doi: 10.1007/s11910-024-01387-2. PMID: 39665844 

Gallay M, Moser D, Jeanmonod D. MR-Guided Focused Ultrasound Central Lateral Thalamotomy for Trigeminal Neuralgia. Single Center Experience Frontiers in Neurology, V11 2020. DOI=10.3389/fneur.2020.00271

Ma Y, Hsu G, Zhang F. The applicability and efficacy of magnetic resonance-guided high intensity focused ultrasound system in the treatment of primary trigeminal neuralgia. Med Hypotheses. 2020 Mar 25;139:109688. doi: 10.1016/j.mehy.2020.109688.

Franzini A, Moosa S, D’Ammando A, Bono B, Scheitler-Ring K, Ferroli P, Messina G, Prada F, Franzini A. The neurosurgical treatment of craniofacial pain syndromes: current surgical indications and techniques. Neurol Sci. 2019 May;40(Suppl 1):159-168. doi: 10.1007/s10072-019-03789-4.

Dallapiazza RF, Timbie KF, Holmberg S, Gatesman J, Lopes MB, Price RJ, Miller GW, Elias WJ. Noninvasive neuromodulation and thalamic mapping with low-intensity focused ultrasound. J Neurosurg. 2018 Mar;128(3):875-884. doi: 10.3171/2016.11.JNS16976. Epub 2017 Apr 21.

Click here for additional references from PubMed.