Cryoablation of Peripheral Nerves for Treatment of Pain Secondary to Intracranial Tumors: A Case Report.

[BACKGROUND] Management of cancer-related pain is an important public health issue, with significant impacts on patient quality of life. Interventional techniques for pain relief, such as perineural catheters, are widespread in clinical practice, allowing the reduction of reliance on morphine. However, their use can result in difficulties, such as catheter dislodgement, leading to a loss of efficacy. Alternative techniques may therefore be advantageous. One such technique is the perineural injection of botulinum toxin (BoNT), a neurotoxin with motor blocking properties, which is reported to exert long-term analgesic effects.

[CASE REPORT] Herein, we describe 2 cases of patients with refractory cancer-related pain, of differing origin, treated by perineural BoNT injection. In both cases, medium-term analgesic effects were achieved from a single injection.

[CONCLUSION] These case reports add to the growing literature on the use of BoNT for cancer-related pain relief, and support calls for future randomized clinical trials in this area.