Papers of the Week

Several microvascular decompression technical variations for the treatment of medically refractory trigeminal neuralgia have been put forward that can be categorized generally as interposition and transposition techniques. These latter approaches, so-called slinging techniques, have been gaining traction, as they possibly reduce long-term recurrence rates by preventing the formation of fibrosis and granulomas at the decompression site. The authors report a technique for transposition of the superior cerebellar artery for microvascular decompression in trigeminal neuralgia using the superior petrosal vein as an in situ sling, to anchor and reroute the artery away from the nerve.