• Zongshi Qin, Shang Xie, Zhi Mao, Yan Liu, Jiani Wu, Toshi A Furukawa, Kwong Joey S W JSW JC School of Public Health and Primary Care, Faculty of Medicine, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China., Jinhui Tian, and Zhishun Liu.
• Department of Acupuncture and Neurology, Guang'anmen Hospital, China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, Beijing, China.
• BMJ Open. 2018 Jan 21; 8 (1): e017392.

IntroductionTrigeminal neuralgia (TN) affects 4 to 28.9/100 000 people worldwide, and antiepileptic drugs such as carbamazepine and oxcarbazepine are the firstline treatment options. However, the efficacy and safety of other antiepileptic drugs remain unclear due to insufficient direct comparisons.ObjectiveTo compare the efficacy and acceptability of all currently available antiepileptic agents for the treatment of patients with classical TN.MethodsWe will search the PubMed, EMBASE, Cochrane Library and Web of Science databases for unpublished or undergoing research listed in registry platforms. We will include all randomised controlled trials comparing two different antiepileptic drugs or one antiepileptic drug with placebo in patients with classical TN. The primary outcomes will be the proportion of responders and the number of subjects who dropout during the treatment. The secondary outcomes will include the two primary outcomes but in the follow-up period, changes in the self-reporting assessment scale for neuralgia and quality of life assessment. In terms of network meta-analysis, we will fit our model to a Bayesian framework using the JAGS and pcnetmeta packages of the R project.Ethics And DisseminationThis protocol will not disseminate any private patient data. The results of this review will be disseminated through peer reviewed publication.Prospero Registration NumberCRD42016048640.© Article author(s) (or their employer(s) unless otherwise stated in the text of the article) 2018. All rights reserved. No commercial use is permitted unless otherwise expressly granted.

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