Clinical effectiveness of lamotrigine and plasma levels in essential and symptomatic trigeminal neuralgia.

This paper reports on the effectiveness of oral lamotrigine in 15 patients suffering from "essential" trigeminal neuralgia and in five patients suffering symptomatic trigeminal neuralgia concomitant with multiple sclerosis. We recorded objective and subjective pain ratings and correlated them to daily dosage (400 mg maximum) and plasma levels of the drug. We detected pain relief proportional to daily dosage and to drug plasma levels. Eleven of the cases affected by the "essential" form of neuralgia showed complete pain relief on reaching their maximum daily dosage. All cases affected by the symptomatic form had complete pain relief. We could detect no changes from these results by the end of the follow-up period (3 to 8 months after the study ended).