Bruce E. Pollock, M.D.
Department of Neurological Surgery
Mayo Clinic
200 First Street SW
Rochester, MN 55905
507-538-1564
http://www.mayoclinic.org/bio/12701661.html
Transcript: Comparing trigeminal neuralgia radiosurgery studies
When one looks at studies on trigeminal neuralgia radiosurgery, it’s very important that you compare apples to apples. And so if one study is looking at patients being pain-free off medications, it’s really not the same comparing it to a study where patients are pain-free on or off medications.
So when looking at these studies, it is important to realize there’s only two end points that we know for sure that we can statistically compare and that would be the number of patients that are pain-free and taking no medications and the number of patients that require later surgery. Everything else that falls between those two end points is very susceptible manipulation of the numbers.
So, you really need to stick with what we call the gold standard which would be the number of patients that take no medications and still have no face pain.