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ORPHA:57145

SUNCT syndrome

medium confidenceDisorder

Also known as: Short-lasting unilateral neuralgiform headache attacks with conjunctival injection and tearing

Publications

835

76.5th percentile

Trials

0

Interventional, condition-specific

Researchers

718

Distinct authors in sample

Gene link

—

Readiness

2/6

Stages with a signal

Clinical definition (Orphanet)

A rare primary headache disorder characterized by unilateral trigeminal pain that occurs in association with ipsilateral cranial autonomic symptoms (conjunctival injection and tearing).

How rare: 1-9 / 100 000 — about one to nine people per hundred thousand.

Orphanet entry

Cross-references

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

Additional Mondo synonyms (3)

SUNCT headache · short-lasting unilateral neuralgiform headache attacks with conjunctival injection and tearing · short-lasting, unilateral, neuralgiform headache attacks with conjunctival injection and tearing

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.”

2/6 stages with a signal

Research-stage checklist from open sources (GenCC, literature, Monarch when enriched, ClinicalTrials.gov). Not a prognosis or care recommendation.

  1. Gene identifiedNot found

    No GenCC disease–gene assertion in this build

  2. LiteraturePresent

    835 matched papers (310 in last 10 years) Source

  3. Phenotype characterisedPresent

    23 HPO annotations (e.g. Episodic pain; Ptosis; Restlessness) Source

  4. Animal modelNot found

    No Alliance genotype “model of” associations via Monarch for these Mondo IDs

  5. Orphan designationNot found

    No FDA or EMA orphan-drug designation matched this disease via UMLS or preferred name Source

  6. Interventional trialNot found

    No matched interventional trial under our ClinicalTrials.gov rules

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)

23

Associated phenotypes · MONDO:0018927

  • Episodic pain
  • Ptosis
  • Restlessness
  • Migraine
  • Flushing

Showing 5 of 23 — open Monarch for the full list.

Animal models (Monarch / Alliance)

None returned for this Mondo ID. Empty here is not proof that no model organism work exists under another name or gene.

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)

No designation matched this disease via UMLS or preferred name on the FDA OOPD mirror or EMA orphan register. Absence here is not proof that none exists under another wording.

Open Targets candidates

No drugs or clinical candidates returned for this Mondo ID on Open Targets.

CTD chemicals (MyDisease.info)

3 associated chemicals. Therapeutic evidence is listed first when present — not a treatment recommendation.

  • Lamotrigine · therapeutic
  • Oxcarbazepine · therapeutic
  • Topiramate · therapeutic

MyDisease.info · MONDO:0018927

Literature

Is anyone studying this?

835

835 papers have been published on this condition. That is a real research literature — still far smaller than common diseases (breast cancer: over 700,000 papers). Median papers in the last 10 years for a rare disease in this dataset (publications denominator n=3967) is 59.

835 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).

310 in the last 10 years · medium confidence · 76.5th percentile (publications denominator)

Phrase hits: 610 · MeSH hits: 4

Open Europe PMC search

Who's working on it?

718

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

Who's working on it?

No interventional trial matched this name; these authors publish on it in the sampled literature — a practical starting point for contact.

  1. 01
    Lambru G16 papers · 2023

    The Headache Centre, Pain Management and Neuromodulation Department, Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust, London, UK. giorgio.lambru@gstt.nhs.uk.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  2. 02
    Goadsby PJ14 papers · 2024

    Headache Group, Department of Neurology, University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA. goadsbyp@neurology.ucsf.edu

    Papers in Europe PMC
  3. 03
    Cohen AS8 papers · 2018

    Headache Group, Institute of Neurology, The National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, Queen Square, London, UK.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  4. 04
    Matharu M8 papers · 2024

    Institute of Neurology, UCL, London, UK The National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, London, UK m.matharu@uclmail.net.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  5. 05
    Matharu MS8 papers · 2021

    Headache Group and Division of Neurosurgery; Institute of Neurology and The National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, Queen Square, London, UK.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  6. 06
    Levy A5 papers · 2022

    Headache Group, Institute of Neurology and The National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, London, UK.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  7. 07
    May A5 papers · 2019

    Department of Systems Neuroscience, University Medical Center Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  8. 08
    Burish M4 papers · 2025

    Department of Neurosurgery, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, USA.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  9. 09
    Franzini A4 papers · 2023

    Department of Neurosurgery, Fondazione IRCCS Istituto Nazionale Neurologico Carlo Besta, Milan, Italy. angelo@angelofranzini.com

    Papers in Europe PMC
  10. 10
    Rantell K4 papers · 2022

    Biostatistician, Education Unit, UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology, London UK.

    Papers in Europe PMC

Clinical research

Is a treatment being tested?

0

interventional trials for this specific condition

No interventional trial testing a treatment matched this specific condition name on ClinicalTrials.gov (observational studies and pan-disease registries are listed separately when present).

Data as of 11 September 2026 · last trial check 11 September 2026

No matched interventional trials. This is true for 77.2% of diseases in the trials denominator (5501 of 7126). Here are the researchers publishing on it.

medium confidence · 38.6th percentile (trials denominator)

Recruiting interventional trials

From the matched ClinicalTrials.gov set

No interventional trial testing a treatment was found for this specific condition name on ClinicalTrials.gov.

See who's working on it — people publishing on this disease are often the practical next contact when no trial is listed.

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 0 · after dedupe 0 · already on CT.gov 0 · kept 0 · parent 0 · uncertain 0 · dropped 0 · fetched 2026-07-29

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).

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 SUNCT syndrome — 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.

("SUNCT syndrome" OR "Short-lasting unilateral neuralgiform headache attacks with conjunctival injection and tearing" OR "SUNCT headache" OR "short-lasting, unilateral, neuralgiform headache attacks with conjunctival injection and tearing") OR (MESH:"SUNCT Syndrome") OR ("SUNCT" OR "SUNCT-related")

Run this search on Europe PMC

MeSH descriptor terms unioned into the query: SUNCT Syndrome

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

"SUNCT syndrome" OR "Short-lasting unilateral neuralgiform headache attacks with conjunctival injection and tearing" OR "SUNCT headache" OR "short-lasting, unilateral, neuralgiform headache attacks with conjunctival injection and tearing"

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

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

Run this search on ClinicalTrials.gov

Confidence reasoning

  • Preferred label is short or not clearly distinctive
  • No synonyms dropped by stoplist
  • No label/synonym collisions with other diseases in this corpus

Ingested 2026-07-27T00:59:33.257Z