title: Association between neurovascular contact and clinical characteristics in classical trigeminal neuralgia: A prospective clinical study using 3.0 Tesla MRI.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Previous studies demonstrated that a severe neurovascular contact (NVC) causing displacement or atrophy of the trigeminal nerve is highly associated with classical trigeminal neuralgia (TN). There are no studies describing the association between the clinical characteristics of TN and severe NVC.
  
  
  METHODS
  Clinical characteristics were prospectively collected from consecutive TN patients using semi-structured interviews in a cross-sectional study design. We evaluated 3.0 Tesla MRI blinded to the symptomatic side.
  
  
  RESULTS
  We included 135 TN patients. Severe NVC was more prevalent in men (75%) compared to women (38%) (p < 0.001), and the odds in favor of severe NVC on the symptomatic side were 5.1 times higher in men compared to women (95% CI 2.3-10.9, p < 0.001). There was no difference between patients with and without severe NVC in age (≥60 years vs. <60) (OR 1.6 95% CI (0.8-3.4), p = 0.199) or duration of disease (p = 0.101).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Severe NVC was much more prevalent in men than in women, who may more often have other disease etiologies causing or contributing to TN. Severe NVC was not associated with age or with duration of disease.
authors.affiliation: Danish Headache Center, Department of Neurology, Glostrup Hospital, University of Copenhagen, Denmark.
authors.forename: Stine
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Maarbjerg
authors.affiliation: Department of Diagnostics, Glostrup Hospital, University of Copenhagen, Denmark.
authors.forename: Frauke
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Wolfram
authors.affiliation: Danish Headache Center, Department of Neurology, Glostrup Hospital, University of Copenhagen, Denmark.
authors.forename: Aydin
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Gozalov
authors.affiliation: Danish Headache Center, Department of Neurology, Glostrup Hospital, University of Copenhagen, Denmark.
authors.forename: Jes
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Olesen
authors.affiliation: Danish Headache Center, Department of Neurology, Glostrup Hospital, University of Copenhagen, Denmark lars.bendtsen@regionh.dk.
authors.forename: Lars
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Bendtsen
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D015897:Comorbidity; D003718:Denmark / Q000453:epidemiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009408:Nerve Compression Syndromes / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000473:pathology*; D018570:Risk Assessment; D017678:Sex Distribution; D014276:Trigeminal Nerve / Q000473:pathology*; D014277:Trigeminal Neuralgia / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000473:pathology*
keywords: Trigeminal neuralgia; clinical characteristics; etiology; neurovascular contact