MRI Reliability in Correlating Clinical Findings of Trigeminal Neuralgia

MRI is not a sufficiently accurate independent study and it does not correlate with the presentation of symptoms in patients for the evaluation of the etiology of trigeminal neuralgia. The objective of this study is to review prior MRIs performed for trigeminal neuralgia and determine if MRI findings correlate with clinical findings. This study represents a retrospective chart review in which all patients from January 1, 2012 through April 1, 2014 receiving gamma knife therapy with associated Magnetic Resonance Imaging (using a 1.5 Tesla MAGNETOM Avanto Siemens imager) for trigeminal neuralgia at the Miami Neuroscience Center at Larkin. The results obtained from this study show that the MRI is unable to reliably find the etiology of symptoms in patients with trigeminal neuralgia. These findings are similar to the observations made in prior reports. This study differs in that we attempted to quantify the reliability rather than simply make the observation. Positive predictive values were obtained for both the left and right. Left PPV - 42.8% and Right PPV - 50.6%.