BACKGROUND: Previous studies demonstrated that a severe neurovascular contact (NVC) causing displacement or atrophy of the trigeminal nerve is highly associated with classical trigeminal neuralgia (TN). There are no studies describing the association between the clinical characteristics of TN and severe NVC.

METHODS: Clinical characteristics were prospectively collected from consecutive TN patients using semi-structured interviews in a cross-sectional study design. We evaluated 3.0 Tesla MRI blinded to the symptomatic side.

RESULTS: We included 135 TN patients. Severe NVC was more prevalent in men (75%) compared to women (38%) (p < 0.001), and the odds in favor of severe NVC on the symptomatic side were 5.1 times higher in men compared to women (95% CI 2.3-10.9, p < 0.001). There was no difference between patients with and without severe NVC in age (≥60 years vs. <60) (OR 1.6 95% CI (0.8-3.4), p = 0.199) or duration of disease (p = 0.101).

CONCLUSIONS: Severe NVC was much more prevalent in men than in women, who may more often have other disease etiologies causing or contributing to TN. Severe NVC was not associated with age or with duration of disease.