• Ji Hee Hong, Jae Yoon Lee, Seung Ju Kim, and Kyeong Hwan Seo.
• Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine, Keimyung University Dongsan, Daegu, Korea.
• Pain Physician. 2023 Jan 1; 26 (1): 394439-44.

BackgroundTrigeminal neuralgia (TN) is usually established using characteristic clinical features such as sudden, severe, and unilateral facial pain. Studies about diverse clinical features and epidemiologic data of TN have been reported previously; however, most of the previous studies have evaluated in and focused on Caucasian and Western populations.ObjectivesThe purpose of this study was to evaluate diverse clinical features, currently applied types of treatment, and brain imaging studies in patients with TN in a Korean population.Study DesignRetrospective analysis.SettingAn interventional pain management practice in South Korea.MethodsPatients with a primary diagnosis of TN were identified using Clinical Data Warehouse v 2.5 (CDW, Planit Healthcare, Seoul, Korea) using the key words "trigeminal neuralgia and G50.0 (International classification of disease 10 code)."ResultsTN occurred predominantly between the fifth and seventh decades of life, with female predominance. The V3 division and unilateral right-side involvement were the most common affected region. An electric shock like sensation and the intraoral side (teeth and gingiva) were the most common pain description and location, respectively. Normal brain imaging studies and vascular compression on the trigeminal nerve were observed in 92 (64.7%) and 36 (25%) patients, respectively. The superior cerebellar artery was the most common offending vessel (19;13.3%). Monotherapy with carbamazepine alone was the most common (91;37.7%), whereas radiofrequency thermoablation was the most common invasive treatment.LimitationsThe results of this study were based on data on TN patients from a single center. The generalizability of the findings to the Korean population is thus limited.ConclusionThere is little difference between Korean and other Asian patients with TN in their demographic and clinical characteristics.

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