Background: To investigate the causes of failure and recurrence after microvascular decompression (MVD) for trigeminal neuralgia (TGN) and to analyze the results of redo surgery.
Methods: Sixty-three cases of redo surgery were retrospectively reviewed. Reasons for re-exploration were categorized into 4 groups based on the operative findings. Patient characteristics, outcomes of re-exploration, and operative complications were analyzed by Kaplan-Meier and logistic regression analyses.
Results: Reasons for redo surgery were divided into arterial compression in 13 patients (21%), venous compression in 11 patients (17%), prosthesis-related in 25 patients (40%), and adhesion or negative exploration in 14 patients (22%). Immediate pain relief was obtained in 59 patients (94%) postoperatively with newly developed facial numbness in 17 patients (27%). Of these, 48 patients (76%) maintained pain-free 1 year postoperatively. Overall recurrence was noted in 17 patients (27%) during the median 49-month follow-up period. Most recurrences occurred within 1 year after redo surgery, but the prosthesis-related patients showed a continuous recurrence up to 4 years. Patients having vascular compression showed significantly better pain control than those without vascular contact in Kaplan-Meier analyses (p = 0.0421). No prognostic factor for pain-free 1 year after redo surgery was found.
Conclusions: Redo surgery is effective for patients with remaining vascular compression rather than those without vascular contact. Teflon contact onto the nerve root should be avoided because it is a potential risk for recurrence and causes poor prognosis after redo surgery.
Keywords: Microvascular decompression; Re-exploration; Redo surgery; Teflon; Trigeminal neuralgia.
© 2021. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Austria, part of Springer Nature.