[Trigeminal neuralgia and tumors of the cerebellopontile angle]

In the last 10 years from 1972 to 1981 one hundred patients with trigeminal neuralgia were treated. The routine surgical treatment included Dandy's operation in microsurgical modification. In 8 cases cerebellopontine angle tumours were unexpectedly found, and were accepted as the cause of trigeminal neuralgia. In 8 cases neither clinical examination nor radiological investigations gave any suggestions of a tumour as the cause of neuralgia before the operation, although the tumours had from 1 to 5 cm in diameter. The tumours were: cholesteatoma in 4 cases, acoustic neurinoma in 2 cases, meningioma in 2 cases. After a survey of the pertinent literature the author discusses the clinical differences between supratentorial and infratentorial tumours causing trigeminal neuralgia reaching the conclusion that trigeminal neuralgia may be a sign of mainly posterior fossa tumours, with the exception of trigeminal neurinomas which nearly never produce typical trigeminal neuralgia.