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INTRODUCTION. Pharmacological treatment is the first therapeutic step towards controlling pain in trigeminal neuralgia, but 25-50% of patients become medication resistant. There are currently several surgical alternatives for treating these patients. AIM. To evaluate the effectiveness and safety of stereotactic radiosurgery for the treatment of patients with trigeminal neuralgia. PATIENTS AND METHODS. A follow-up study was conducted on 30 patients who underwent radiosurgery using a Novalis linear accelerator. Eighty per cent of the dosage was calculated at the isocentre, the entry zone of the root of the trigeminal nerve. The mean follow-up time was 27.5 months (range: 1-65 months). RESULTS. The mean age was 66 years (range: 36-87 years), with a time to progression of 7.1 years (range: 4-27 years). The distribution of the pain was from the right side (63.3%). Of the 30 patients, 27 experienced an improvement (90%) 1.6 months (range: 1 week-4 months) after the treatment; 10 patients (33.3%) scored grade I, and 17 patients (56.6%) obtained a score of grade II. During the follow-up, four patients (14.2%) suffered a relapse; two underwent re-irradiation. Time without recurrence was 62.7 months (range: 54.6-70.8 months). The rate of side effects was 76.7% and only three patients developed facial anaesthesia with loss of the corneal reflex. CONCLUSIONS. The use of the linear accelerator is an effective therapeutic option in the treatment of trigeminal neuralgia, since it provides adequate long-term control of the pain, reduces the use of medication and improves the quality of life.

In order to know the frequency and distribution of the histologic types of Hodgkin disease (HD) in the general Hospital of Mexico City and to compare the results with those of other countries; 96,909 surgical specimens were reviewed; 422 were of HD, from which only 309 (0.31%) could be reclassified according to the modified Rye classification, 214 (69%) were male and 95 (31%) female (M:F = 1:2.25). The mean age for the group was 26 years, for females was 30 and for males 24. The graphic for age and sex showed a unimodal curve in both sexes. The most frequent histologic type was mixed cellularity with 175 cases (56.6%), followed by the NE type with 83 (26.9%), the DL with 26 (8.4%) and finally the PL type with 25 (8.1%). In all the groups predominated the males as reported by other authors, but they reported a bimodal curve of age distribution and ours was unimodal as reported in Peru, Colombia, Uganda. The mean age is also one decade younger than in other countries, probably because almost 50% of the Mexican population are youngsters. The distribution of histologic types is similar to those of South Africa, Colombia, Uganda, Zambia and to the poor black population from USA, where the most frequent type is the mixed cellularity. The frequency of the other histologic types differs from the reports of Denmark Sweden, USA and England were the NE type predominates.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)