Introduction

It is tempting to think of neurosurgery for the treatment of chronic pain as being a matter of the dramatic interruption or interference with some established ‘pain pathway’. In fact, it has a great deal more to offer, both by conventional treatment of the cause of the pain (e.g. trigeminal neuralgia (TGN)) and in the area of palliative manoeuvres in malignant situations. When surgery is appropriate it can provide satisfactory relief of pain without reducing the quality of life that may result from long-term medication use.

When considering surgery for the treatment of chronic pain, the most important criteria turn out to be the quality of life and its expected duration, resulting from the disease process causing the pain. Pain due to uncontrolled malignancy, with reduced physical capacity and life expectation, will demand prompt treatment, with perhaps greater acceptance of surgical risk than, will that of a sufferer from a protracted but non-life-threatening condition. Patients of advanced age might also, on the same logic, demand expedient surgery, acknowledging the risk.

Palliative neurosurgery for the pain of malignancy

Spinal malignancy

There is no questioning the appropriateness of treating surgically a malignancy of a long bone that has caused a pathological fracture.