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ORPHA:221091

Trigeminal neuralgia

low confidenceDisorder

Publications

20,227

Trials

98

Interventional, condition-specific

Researchers

1,110

Distinct authors in sample

Gene link

—

Readiness

5/6

Stages with a signal

Clinical definition (Orphanet)

A rare acquired peripheral characterized by paroxysmal, sharp, stabbing, electric-shock-like orofacial pain, that is restricted to one or more of the trigeminal nerve divisions and mostly unilateral. Attacks are brief (few seconds to a maximum of two minutes), but typically occur repeatedly and periodically, can arise spontaneously or be triggered by innocuous stimuli, and are frequently accompanied by tic-like cramps of facial muscles. The condition affects women more often than men.

How rare: How common this is has not been clearly measured.

Orphanet entry

Cross-references

Joined from Mondo / Orphanet. MeSH labels may enter searches; UMLS / OMIM / NCIT are stored for reference.

Additional Mondo synonyms (3)

neuralgia of trigeminal nerve · trigeminal nerve neuralgia · trigeminal neuralgia

Research stages

Trial readiness signals

Where this condition sits on an open-data research pipeline — not how close a treatment is, and not medical advice. Empty stages often mean “not in these databases under this Mondo ID,” not “impossible.”

5/6 stages with a signal

An interventional trial matched this condition name on ClinicalTrials.gov — see trials below.

  1. Gene identifiedNot found

    No GenCC disease–gene assertion in this build

  2. LiteraturePresent

    20,227 matched papers (9,255 in last 10 years) Source

  3. Phenotype characterisedPresent

    18 HPO annotations (e.g. Cluster headache; Allodynia; Cranial nerve compression) Source

  4. Animal modelPresent

    1 genotype model (Mus musculus) Source

  5. Orphan designationPresent

    5 FDA designations (5 FDA orphan-indication approvals) — e.g. carbon dioxide Source

  6. Interventional trialPresent

    98 matched on ClinicalTrials.gov (23 recruiting in sample)

Biology

Genes and phenotypes

Gene–disease validity from GenCC, plus phenotypes and animal models joined from Monarch Initiative via Mondo ID — not a clinical diagnosis aid.

Do we know what causes it?

Not yet — the cause hasn't been pinned down in GenCC.

No strong gene–disease assertion joined for this Orphanet entity.

Phenotypes (Monarch / HPO)

18

Associated phenotypes · MONDO:0008599

  • Cluster headache
  • Allodynia
  • Cranial nerve compression
  • Neoplasm
  • CNS demyelination

Showing 5 of 18 — open Monarch for the full list.

Animal models (Monarch / Alliance)

1

Model associations linked to this Mondo ID

Monarch fetch 2026-07-29

Therapies

Designations, candidates, and chemicals

FDA OOPD and EMA orphan designations, Open Targets clinical candidates, and CTD chemical associations via MyDisease.info. These never change the interventional-trial headline.

Orphan designation (FDA · EMA)

5

Designations · 5 with FDA orphan-indication approval

  • FDA carbon dioxideTrigeminal Neuralgia · 2015-12-17 · Not FDA Approved for Orphan Indication
  • FDA vixotrigineTrigeminal Neuralgia · 2013-07-24 · Not FDA Approved for Orphan Indication
  • FDA dehydrated alcoholTrigeminal Neuralgia · 2012-03-16 · Not FDA Approved for Orphan Indication
  • FDA L-baclofenTrigeminal Neuralgia · 1998-01-06 · Not FDA Approved for Orphan Indication
  • FDA L-baclofenTrigeminal Neuralgia · 1990-07-13 · Not FDA Approved for Orphan Indication

Sources: FDA OOPD · EMA orphan designations

Open Targets candidates

27

Drugs / clinical candidates · MONDO_0008599

CTD chemicals (MyDisease.info)

15 associated chemicals · 366 pathways. Therapeutic evidence is listed first when present — not a treatment recommendation.

  • Baclofen · therapeutic
  • Botulinum Toxins, Type A · therapeutic
  • Carbamazepine · therapeutic
  • Domperidone · therapeutic
  • Gabapentin · therapeutic
  • Oxcarbazepine · therapeutic
  • Phenol · therapeutic
  • Phenytoin · therapeutic
  • Resveratrol · therapeutic
  • tizanidine · therapeutic
  • uyakujunkisan · therapeutic
  • Bromocriptine · marker/mechanism

Pathways: EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitor resistance; Endocrine resistance; Antifolate resistance; Platinum drug resistance; MAPK signaling pathway; ErbB signaling pathway; Ras signaling pathway; Rap1 signaling pathway

MyDisease.info · MONDO:0008599

Literature

Is anyone studying this?

20,227

20,227 papers — among the better-studied rare conditions, though still a fraction of common-disease literature (breast cancer: over 700,000). Median papers in the last 10 years for a rare disease in this dataset (publications denominator n=3967) is 59.

20,227 papers since the earliest indexed year in this search — median last-10-year count for a rare disease in this dataset is 59 (publications denominator n=3967).

9,255 in the last 10 years · low confidence

Phrase hits: 20,227 · MeSH hits: 685

Open Europe PMC search

Who's working on it?

1,110

Distinct author names in 200 sampled papers — named people below.

Who's working on it?

People publishing on this condition (sampled Europe PMC records). Affiliation is the most recent found in that sample.

  1. 01
    Liu J6 papers · 2026

    Department of Neurosurgery, China-Japan Friendship Hospital, 2 Yinghuayuan East Street, Chaoyang District, Beijing, 100029, People's Republic of China. liujiang889@126.com.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  2. 02
    Wang Y6 papers · 2026

    First Teaching Hospital of Tianjin University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Tianjin, China.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  3. 03
    Chen Y5 papers · 2026

    School of Clinical Medicine, Chongqing Medical and Pharmaceutical College, Chongqing, China.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  4. 04
    Wang X5 papers · 2026

    Department of Neurosurgery, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland, United States.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  5. 05
    Zhang Y5 papers · 2026

    Department of Neurosurgery, the Affiliated Brain Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, China.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  6. 06
    Agari T4 papers · 2026

    Department of Neurosurgery, International University of Health and Welfare, Narita Hospital, Narita City, Japan.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  7. 07
    Di Stefano G4 papers · 2026

    Department of Human Neuroscience, Sapienza University, Rome, Italy.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  8. 08
    Itokawa H4 papers · 2026

    Department of Neurosurgery, International University of Health and Welfare, Narita Hospital, Narita City, Japan.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  9. 09
    Kato J4 papers · 2026

    Department of Neurosurgery, International University of Health and Welfare, Narita Hospital, Narita City, Japan.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  10. 10
    Liu X4 papers · 2026

    Clinical College of Anhui Medical University, Hefei, China.

    Papers in Europe PMC

Clinical research

Is a treatment being tested?

98

interventional trials for this specific condition

98 interventional trials matched this specific condition name; 23 currently recruiting in our sample. 282 trials are registered for neuralgia, the broader category — shown separately because they may or may not enrol this specific subtype.

Data as of 11 September 2026

98 interventional trials — more than 77.2% of diseases in the trials denominator have none at all (5501 of 7126; this disease is at the 98.5th percentile).

low confidence · 98.5th percentile (trials denominator)

Recruiting interventional trials

From the matched ClinicalTrials.gov set

98 interventional trials matched after quoted-phrase search and title/condition post-filter.

Broader category: neuralgia

282

Interventional trials for the parent category, exclusive of NCT IDs already counted above. Eligibility for this subtype is not guaranteed.

Worth raising with a clinician. How we count trials.

Recruiting under the broader category

Observational and natural-history studies

39 observational studies match this condition. These do not test a treatment and are not counted in the interventional-trial headline, but they are genuine research: natural-history work often defines the endpoints needed for a future rare-disease trial, and families may be able to enroll.

Recruiting or not-yet-recruiting

Open the complete matched search on ClinicalTrials.gov

Other registries (secondary)

Broader net from EU CTIS, ISRCTN, and ICTRP when available — deduped against ClinicalTrials.gov IDs already counted above. Dual-model LLM relevance gates what we keep. These rows are not added to the interventional headline.

raw 15 · after dedupe 15 · already on CT.gov 0 · kept 0 · parent 0 · uncertain 15 · dropped 0 · fetched 2026-07-30

Source notes: ictrp: Error: ICTRP public search unavailable (WHO portal is SPA-only; SOAP needs partnership). Tried: https://apps.who.int/tri

No secondary-registry studies passed dual-model relevance for this condition name (after dedupe).

Uncertain / not reviewed (15)

Where to find support

Condition-specific patient organisations, when Orphanet lists them, are on the disease’s Orphanet page. We also link umbrella groups that support undiagnosed and ultra-rare families.

Orphanet entry for Trigeminal neuralgia — check Associations / patient organisations on that page.

India — NPRD

Last verified 2026-07-26

This ORPHAcode is not on our curated NPRD list (direct or Mondo-parent match). That does not decide clinical eligibility; families in India should ask a notified Centre of Excellence about current coverage.

Hand-curated for this project. ORPHAcode mappings are best-effort and may be incomplete or imprecise for umbrella categories. Parent (Mondo) matches mean the policy lists a broader category — confirm eligibility with a Centre of Excellence. Financial entitlements summarised from public policy statements and may change. This is not official government guidance.

How we counted this

Europe PMC query (preferred label + any corrected label + Orphanet and Mondo exact synonyms, stoplisted; unioned with resolved MeSH labels when available). UMLS / OMIM / NCIT cross-references are stored on the overview but are not added to the query string.

"Trigeminal neuralgia" OR "neuralgia of trigeminal nerve" OR "neuralgia of the trigeminal nerve" OR "trigeminal nerve neuralgia"

Run this search on Europe PMC

MeSH descriptor terms unioned into the query: Trigeminal Neuralgia

ClinicalTrials.gov query (quoted phrases + MeSH via query.cond, plus recall-expansion terms when used):

"Trigeminal neuralgia" OR "neuralgia of trigeminal nerve" OR "neuralgia of the trigeminal nerve" OR "trigeminal nerve neuralgia"

Interventional trials matched via: both, phrase (mesh = registered under a MeSH descriptor no name phrase would catch; recall-expansion = gene / selected parent terms used only for trials).

Study-type breakdown: 98 interventional · 39 observational · 0 expanded access. Only interventional studies enter the trial headline.

Parent-category trials query:

"neuralgia"

Query health: ok — strategies attempted: phrase, mesh; with hits: phrase, mesh

Run this search on ClinicalTrials.gov

Confidence reasoning

  • Preferred label is multi-word and distinctive
  • No synonyms dropped by stoplist
  • No label/synonym collisions with other diseases in this corpus
  • Publication count (20227) is extremely high with unknown/missing prevalence — treat as possible over-matching, not proven research intensity

Ingested 2026-07-27T09:56:44.152Z