Tic Douloureux Treated With New Anticonvulsant

Abstract

The numerous different types of operation described for trigeminal neuralgia are an indication of the therapeutic difficulties encountered with this disease. Even if several good methods of operation exist, they all have certain disadvantages that prevent them from enbeing ideal. The drugs reported as having any effect are few, and all of them either have proved toxic with long-term therapy or have had excessive secondary effects. A therapeutically practical method would seem to be to block the mechanism that gives rise to the attacks of pain, or—to put it another way—to find a means of blocking both normal and pathological transmission in synapses in the trigeminal area. At the same time, the drug used should be selective, so as not to have any marked effect on other cerebral functions, and it should be possible to give it over a long period. To be regarded as specific and safe, such a drug