Abstract:Objective To investigate the clinical efficacy of three minimally invasive therapies in recurrent trigeminal neuralgia (TN).Methods Clinical data of 99 patients with recurrent TN treated in our hospital from July 2016 to July 2020 were retrospectively analyzed. The patients were divided into group A (32 cases), group B (36 cases) and group C (31 cases) according to the minimally invasive therapy applied. Specifically, group A received percutaneous radiofrequency thermocoagulation, group B received microvascular decompression (MVD), and group C received percutaneous microballoon compression (PBC). Perioperative indicators, postoperative remission, negative emotions, sleep quality and complications were compared among the three groups. The recurrence rate of the three groups was compared after 2 years of follow-up.Results The intraoperative blood loss in group B was higher than that in group A and group C (P < 0.05), and that in group C was even higher compared with group A (P < 0.05). The length of postoperative hospital stay and operative duration in group B were longer than those in group A and group C (P < 0.05), and those in group C were even longer than those in group A (P < 0.05). The overall remission rates 1 d and 1 year after surgery were not different among the three groups (P > 0.05), whereas the overall remission rate 2 years after surgery in group C and group B was higher than that in group A (P < 0.05). The subscale scores for anxiety and depression in Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) and Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) scores in the three groups before and 1 day, 7 days and 6 months after surgery were compared via repeated measures analysis of variance. The results revealed that there were differences in subscale scores for anxiety and depression in HADS and PSQI scores among the time points (P < 0.05) and the groups, and that the change trends of these scores were also different among the groups (P < 0.05). There was no significant difference in the incidence of perioral herpes, facial numbness, masticatory muscle weakness, cerebrospinal fluid leakage and local hematoma among the three groups (P > 0.05). The recurrence rate of group A was higher than that of group B and group C (P < 0.05).Conclusions Compared with percutaneous radiofrequency thermocoagulation and MVD, PBC is more conducive to alleviating negative emotions, improving sleep quality, ameliorating the pain, and lowering the risk of recurrence for patients with recurrent TN.