Trigeminal neuralgia as the initial manifestation of temporal glioma: Report of three cases and a review of the literature

BACKGROUND: It is almost an accepted scenario that trigeminal neuralgia (TN) occurs when there is a kind of vascular compression on the root entry zone of trigeminal nerve at pons. There are occasional reports about trigeminal neuralgia as the presenting sign of intracranial tumors but temporal glioma has rarely been included in the list. CASE DESCRIPTION: We report three cases of temporal lobe glioma which presented with trigeminal neuralgia as the initial manifestation and review the relevant literature briefly. The patients were 19-, 20-, and 31-year-old males who presented with partially controlled TN. The tumor mass could be detected in paraclinical evaluations when the usual modalities of therapy for facial pain in our community were not effective. Excisional surgery led in full pain control in all the cases. Two of the patients died because of tumor recurrence after a year and the other one is being treated by adjuvants. CONCLUSION: We add these types of intracranial tumors to the list of the etiologies for TN and the possible mechanisms for the initiation of pain in these types of intracranial tumors are discussed.