Samuel Barnett, M.D.
Department of Neurological Surgery
UT Southwestern Medical Center
5303 Harry Hines Blvd.
4th Floor, Suite 100
Dallas, TX 75390-9167
214-645-2300
http://www.utsouthwestern.edu/patientcare/doctor/findphysician/profile/0,0,69044_Dr_Samuel_Barnett_MD,00.html
Transcript: Balloon Compression candidates
I think that microvascular decompression is going to remain the sort of the cornerstone of surgical treatment of trigeminal neuralgia. However, there are some patients where balloon compression may be a better choice. And those are going to be patients who are either unwilling to have the open microsurgical procedure or for some reason medical or otherwise are unable to undergo that procedure. The balloon compression can be a very good choice for those patients. It is especially a good choice for patients who have pain in the V1 distribution because it treats all three distributions of the face. It’s also a good procedure because it does not give you numbness of the cornea which protects your eye from damage down the road. So it has those advantageous over other percutaneous procedures.
In addition, the age of the patient is essentially irrelevant really. It’s more a matter of fitness for the procedure and whether or not it’s a good choice based on the patient’s specific needs for their trigeminal neuralgia.