Microvascular decompression as treatment of trigeminal neuralgia in the elderly patient.

Elderly patients with idiopathic trigeminal neuralgia are commonly referred to percutaneous treatment if medical therapy has failed. Due to elaborated microsurgical techniques and perioperative care, minimal invasive neurosurgical operations like microvascular decompression (MVD) can be offered increasingly to elderly patients. We operated upon 8 elderly patients (median 70.5 years) suffering from trigeminal neuralgia using MVD in a one-year period (1995). Seven patients were free of pain at release. At a two year follow-up, 2 patients reported of slight dull pain in the trigeminal area, one of these had been pretreated with retrogasserian glycerol rhizolysis and an initial MVD procedure four years before this decompression. All patients were still off medication (analgetics and anticonvulsants), indicating that all patients experienced an excellent (6/8) or a good (2/8) result two years after MVD. One CSF fistula requiring reoperation was the only complication. After failure of medical therapy for symptomatic trigeminal neuralgia, we encourage elderly patients to undergo MVD if the general medical condition is stable and complete pain relief without medication is the requested aim of treatment.