A systematic review on persistent trigeminal artery, in searching for a therapeutic solution to idiopathic and unresponsive trigeminal nerve inflammations and migraines

The rarely diagnosed persistent trigeminal artery (PTA) originates from the posterior bend or lateral wall of the intracavernous carotid artery and is the most common occurring type of remnant primitive fetal arteries. Even if PTA is uncommon, information and awareness about it could be of great help for clinicians dealing with cranial vascular imaging and operating this region. In addition, it could give a supporting response to the presence of a wide range of idiopathic and unresponsive disturbs that sometimes are erroneously interpreted and treated. There are very few published scientific reports of coexisting PTA and unilateral trigeminal neuralgia and migraine-cephalgia (MC). In this review we describe few reported and unreported cases regarding the manifestation of unresponsive trigeminal neuralgia and migraine due to the presence of PTA. Patients usually present with a clinical symptomatology with unstable blood hypertension, pain of typical trigeminal neuralgia and MC that cover unilaterally the occipital area over the second and third divisions of the nerve. The outbreaks may often become more severe during physical exertion, stress and hypertension. Angio-MRI may reveal the PTA with an occasional occurrence of parietal cavernoma. We also describe a case of chronic left MC case associated with an adjacent PTA close to the trigeminal nerve position. The size and location of the PTA was confirmed by a CT-Angiography. The MC was safely treated by bio-identical testosterone, human placenta extract (HPE), b-nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NADH) and low dose amlopidine. It is hypothesized that these types of primitive anastomose arteries that fully belong to the intracranial arterial vascular system do not perform any supportive functional activity. Nevertheless, they undergo the normal biological decay caused by the aging process and metabolic dysfunctions. Therefore, such primitive fetal arteries as PTA might be subjected not only to a faster structural deterioration but they would actively contribute to a series of mechanisms causing a variety of idiopathic intracranial vascular and structural symptoms. Consequently, this would change the primary therapeutic approach to solve this problem, today represented by surgical removal. Anatomic implications related to treatment procedure are also discussed.

Acute insulin responses to calcium and tolbutamide do not differentiate focal from diffuse congenital hyperinsulinism

Congenital hyperinsulinism (CHI) is related to two main histological pancreas anomalies: focal adenomatous hyperplasia and diffuse beta-cell hypersecretion. Pharmacological tests to measure acute insulin responses (AIR) to peripheral i.v. injections of glucose, calcium, and tolbutamide have been reported as potential means to distinguish between these histological forms. In patients with defects in ATP-sensitive potassium channels, tolbutamide will fail to induce insulin release in affected portions of the pancreas, whereas calcium gluconate will enhance insulin release through spontaneously active voltage-gated Ca(2+) channels. Consequently, in focal CHI patients, calcium should promote AIRs from the lesion, whereas tolbutamide should act to promote insulin secretion from the healthy region of the pancreas (outside the focal hyperplasia). We therefore studied AIRs to calcium and tolbutamide stimulation tests in 16 children with focal (n = 9) or diffuse (n = 7) CHI before pancreatic surgery. We found hypervariable AIRs to glucose and calcium stimulation in both focal and diffuse CHI patients. AIRs to tolbutamide stimulation were found modest in focal CHI patients, which might account for beta-cell quiescence in the healthy portion of the pancreas of these patients. We conclude that AIRs to calcium and tolbutamide stimulation tests are not sufficient to differentiate the focal from the diffuse CHI patients.

Isolated trigeminal neuropathy. An unusual complication of carcinoma of the lung

The occurrence of isolated metastasis to the trigeminal nerve or ganglion form a distant, solid tumor is rare. This communication describes a patient with carcinoma of the lung; an isolated trigeminal neuropathy developed and at autopsy proved to be secondary to metastasis to the trigeminal ganglion. The appearance of a trigeminal neuropathy in a patient with an active solid tumor elsewhere in the body is most likely due to metastasis.