Microvascular decompression is the first choice for treating the primary
trigeminal neuralgia to provide the most extended duration of pain freedom.
However, in microvascular decompression, we found that this kind of operation is
only suitable for some patients. It is of great value to objectively judge the
function and abnormality of the trigeminal pain conduction pathway in guiding the
operation process. This brief report investigates the value of pain evoked
potential by electrical stimulation and noceciptive blink reflex in trigeminal
neuralgia. We detected the pain evoked potential in 34 patients with trigeminal
neuralgia and 48 healthy controls treated by electrical stimulation and blink
reflex. We demonstrated no significant differences in the latencies of V,
V, V, and R of the affected side and the contralateral side in
patients with trigeminal neuralgia. The latencies of those four indicators of the
affected side in patients with trigeminal neuralgia were notably decreased
compared to those on the same side in healthy controls. The receiver operating
characteristic curve analysis showed that the area under curve, sensitivity and
specificity of the combined diagnosis of latency and amplitude were significantly
higher than the single diagnosis. The latency and amplitude of V were highly
sensitive, while those of V was highly specific. Trigeminal neuralgia can be
effectively diagnosed by combining pain evoked potential by electrical
stimulation and noceciptive blink reflex. The pathogenesis of trigeminal
neuralgia should be combined with peripheral pathogenicity and the theory of
central pathogenicity.