{"id":543933,"date":"2026-03-18T06:08:15","date_gmt":"2026-03-18T06:08:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/543933\/"},"modified":"2026-03-18T06:08:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-18T06:08:15","slug":"edmonton-clinical-trial-offers-hope-to-people-suffering-most-severe-pains-known-to-mankind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/543933\/","title":{"rendered":"Edmonton clinical trial offers hope to people suffering \u2018most severe pains known to mankind\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

A group of Edmonton researchers is recruiting dozens of patients across the province to take part in a new clinical trial aimed at helping those suffering from trigeminal neuralgia<\/a>, historically dubbed the \u201csuicide disease\u201d because of the severe impact it has on patients.<\/p>\n

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The term dates back to a time before effective treatments were available, when an estimated quarter of patients died by suicide due to the severity of the pain.<\/p>\n

\u201cTrigeminal neuralgia is one of the most severe pains known to mankind,\u201d said Dr. Tejas Sankar, a neurosurgeon at the University of Alberta Hospital.<\/p>\n

The condition causes excruciating, stabbing facial pain. In the past, treatment was nerve pain medication.<\/p>\n

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However, doctors say the side effects and effectiveness of medications caused issues for many patients. Another invasive surgery called microvascular decompression can also be used. Gamma Knife radiation was used as a last resort.<\/p>\n

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Researchers are hoping to flip the switch, using the non-invasive surgery as a first resort.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe treat trigeminal neuralgia by giving a pretty high dose of radiation to the trigeminal nerve on the affected side, but the longer you wait before you offer Gamma Knife, the less likely it is to lead to long-term remission of the disease,\u201d Dr. Sankar said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat if you could break that cycle much, much earlier\u2026 soon after the diagnosis?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Dr. Sankar said his team\u2019s research<\/a>, using MRI, shows that living with the condition actually impacts the way the brain works.<\/p>\n

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There are around 700 new cases of trigeminal neuralgia diagnosed in Alberta every year. The goal of the trial is to stop the changes in the brain, before they become permanent.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe longer you have this facial pain condition, the more lasting changes occur in the brain both structurally and functionally,\u201d Sankar said.<\/p>\n

Researchers are looking to recruit 80 patients from across Alberta to take part in the trial at the Scott and Brown Families Gamma Knife Centre at the University of Alberta Hospital \u2014 the only facility of its kind in the province.<\/p>\n

Half of the patients will receive standard nerve pain medications, while the other half will undergo what researchers call \u201cultra\u2011early\u201d Gamma Knife surgery.<\/p>\n

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Researchers say the control group will receive today\u2019s standard treatment and can still opt for Gamma Knife later, if needed<\/p>\n

Dr. Sankar\u2019s team will follow patients for five years, evaluating their pain using the international standard Barrow Neurological Institute Facial Pain Scale<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know from before that patients who are treated with Gamma Knife, even later in the disease, the ones who are success stories are real success stories,\u201d he told Global News. \u201cThey\u2019re pain-free, their quality of life is phenomenal, and they\u2019re off medications.\u201d<\/p>\n

That includes patients like Norm Sanche, who was diagnosed with the condition four years ago. Sanche told Global News that before he underwent Gamma Knife surgery, he would suffer sometimes up to three times a day with pain.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like 110 volts to your head. It\u2019s not fun,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was one of those things that is in the back of your mind. It\u2019s kind of scary because you never know when it\u2019s going to go off.\u201d<\/p>\n

He underwent the procedure in April 2025 and said after weaning off the medication, he now lives a normal, pain-free life.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a life-changer,\u201d he said. \u201cWithin a month, I was on a golf course!\u201d<\/p>\n

The goal is for the Gamma Knife surgery to damage the nerve enough to interrupt the pain signals being sent between the face and the brain. By inducing subtle damage, surgeons aim to stop excessive \u201ccross\u2011talk\u201d within the nerve that allows pain signals to over\u2011fire, while not damaging important nerves that control things like sensation in the face and chewing.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s not as rare as you might think,\u201d Dr. Sankar said about the condition.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the issues is that, because it\u2019s not well known, many people go quite some time before they get a diagnosis.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dr. Sankar said most of the time people end up going to their dentist because the pain is in the jaw and the cheek, but that takes time.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy that point, several months have passed and we\u2019re sort of fighting the clock because that chronic pain is going to become stamped into the brain,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe hope that one of the benefits of this trial is not just a better way to treat trigeminal neuralgia by hitting it early with Gamma Knife but also increasing awareness of the disease so that people can come in shortly after they develop the symptoms.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The Gamma Knife uses highly-focused beams of radiation to treat brain conditions. The one at the University of Alberta Hospital was brought in 2017. It is the only one west of Winnipeg in Canada and allows doctors to do highly-specialized procedures, without a scalpel.<\/p>\n

\u201cAccess to it has really changed the game,\u201d Dr. Sankar said. \u201cNot just for the treatment of trigeminal neuralgia, but also the treatment of many other conditions, you know, brain tumours and brain cancers, other conditions as well, blood vessel abnormalities.\u201d<\/p>\n

If early Gamma Knife surgery prevents chronic pain from becoming permanent, Dr. Sankar hopes it could become first\u2011line treatment, sparing patients\u2019 years of medication side effects and treatment failure.<\/p>\n

For patients like Sanche, the potential of earlier intervention is already clear.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I can help somebody else out, it\u2019s a win-win,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Recruitment for the study is ongoing, with patients being followed for up to five years to determine whether early Gamma Knife surgery can prevent chronic pain from becoming permanent.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t&copy 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A group of Edmonton researchers is recruiting dozens of patients across the province to take part in a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":543934,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[49,48,212189,86614,84,72417,86612],"class_list":["post-543933","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-gamma-knife","tag-gamma-knife-surgery","tag-health","tag-health-matters-edmonton","tag-trigeminal-neuralgia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=543933"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543933\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/543934"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=543933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=543933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=543933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}