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  • Trigeminal neuralgia leading to a diagnosis of ovarian cancer: a timely coincidence or a case of paraneoplastic syndrome?

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Case report
Trigeminal neuralgia leading to a diagnosis of ovarian cancer: a timely coincidence or a case of paraneoplastic syndrome?
  1. Jonathan Gaughran1,
  2. Tom Lyne2 and
  3. Ahmad Sayasneh3,4
  1. 1Gynaecology, Guy's and St Thomas' Hospitals NHS Trust, London, UK
  2. 2Faculty of Life Sciences and Medicine, King's College London, London, UK
  3. 3Surgical Oncology, Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust, London, UK
  4. 4School of Life Course Sciences, Faculty of Life Sciences and Medicine, King's College London, London, UK
  1. Correspondence to Dr Jonathan Gaughran; gaughraj{at}tcd.ie

Abstract

A 51-year-old woman was referred to oral medicine with a 2-month history of progressive paraesthesia of the right lip, chin and oral mucosa. Examination revealed decreased sensation to the right dermatone of the inferior alveolar nerve and allodynia to light touch of the lower lip. An MRI of the head revealed bilateral cisternal trigeminal nerve pathological enhancement. While blood tests suggested a connective tissue disorder as the cause of the trigeminal neuralgia, a subsequent diagnosis of high-grade serous ovarian cancer gave a differential diagnosis of paraneoplastic syndrome.

  • neuroendocrinology
  • surgical oncology
  • Sjogren's syndrome
  • radiology
  • gynaecological cancer

https://doi.org/10.1136/bcr-2021-243480

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    Footnotes

    • Contributors AS treated the patient and formulated plan with the patient to write the report and reviewed and amended the paper before submission. TL performed a literature review under the supervision of JG who wrote the paper.

    • Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.