Journal of clinical neuroscience : official journal of the Neurosurgical Society of Australasia
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The optimal radiation dose and target of Gamma-knife radiosurgery (GKRS) for medically refractory idiopathic trigeminal neuralgia (TN) are contentious. We investigated the effects and trigeminal nerve deficits of GKRS using two isocenters to treat a great length of the trigeminal nerve. Between January 2005 and March 2010, 129 patients with idiopathic TN underwent GKRS at the West China Hospital of Sichuan University. ⋯ Forty-nine patients reported mild-to-moderate facial numbness and one patient experienced paroxysmal temporalis muscle spasms two weeks after the treatment. GKRS treatment for medically refractory idiopathic TN with two isocenters resulted in an initial pain improvement in 95.6% of patients. The early response to the treatment might suggest a good outcome but, given the high incidence of nerve deficits, GKRS for TN with two isocenters is not recommended as a routine treatment protocol.