14 DAY TRIAL // A new study carried out by the University of Maryland, School of Medicine in Baltimore, proved that radiation therapy ameliorates trigeminal neuralgia, the painful condition associated with multiple sclerosis.
Nearly 300,000 Americans are suffering from multiple sclerosis, a progressive neurological disease that triggers the body's immune system to attack its own nerve cells, preventing the brain from communicating with the spinal cord.
Trigeminal neuralgia is a very painful condition that affects more and more patients with multiple sclerosis, and it's caused by the dysfunction of the trigeminal nerve – one of the nerves that innervates the human face.
The team of scientists led by Tejan Diwanji found out that stereotactic radiation could be a long-term and very efficient treatment for trigeminal neuralgia.
The number of people with multiple sclerosis, who experience this painful condition is increasing, and radiation, besides being a noninvasive procedure, has the less negative side effects of all known treatments, according to the longest follow-up in a study of its kind.
This research involved 13 patients with multiple sclerosis (MS), who also suffered from trigeminal neuralgia, and who were treated with radiosurgery (the other name for stereotactic radiation therapy).
The patients were treated at the University of Maryland between 1998 and 2001 and were followed for an average period of five years after the treatment.
Lead author of the study, Tejan Diwanji said :”we studied patients for a median of five years after treatment, which is the longest period of follow-up ever completed.”
“Our study shows that radiosurgery using Gamma Knife is a proven alternative to surgery or anti-epileptic drugs.”
Stereotactic radiation therapy refers to a single or several treatments to the brain, in this case GammaKnife (other brand names for stereotactic radiation are Axesse, CyberKnife, Novalis, Primatom, Synergy, X-Knife, TomoTherapy or Trilogy).
The purpose of the study was to assess the long-term effectiveness of this new method.
Normally, stereotactic radiation is a special kind of external beam radiation therapy that focuses radiation beams on a well-defined area of the body.
It is usually used for treating brain tumors, but for this experiment, the doctors targeted a nerve root, onto which they delivered a very precise radiation dose.
They did so in order to spare most of the surrounding tissue, thus minimizing the negative side effects.
Diwanji said that “we need more long-term studies to confirm the positive and lasting outcomes of radiosurgery, then it could become the treatment of choice for MS patients afflicted with trigeminal neuralgia.
“I encourage people with MS suffering from trigeminal neuralgia to talk to their doctor about consulting a radiation oncologist to see if they would be good candidates for radiosurgery,” he added.
This study will be presented October 31, 2010, at the 52nd Annual Meeting of the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO).