Cranial and Cervical Rhizotomy in the Control of Pain for Malignancies of the Head and Neck

Surgical treatment of pain in head and neck cancer has developed slowly as a by-product of the search for procedures for the relief of other types of head and neck pain. Spiller and Frazier 13 and others in the early part of this century developed trigeminal neurotomy through the temporal route as a practical operation for the relief of the intractable pain of trigeminal neuralgia. Davis 4 in 1923 reported that section of the trigeminal nerve alone did not relieve deep facial pain which was found to be transmitted by a portion of the facial nerve. In 1924, Adson 1 described the relief of the paroxyms of throat pain in glossopharyngeal neuralgia by section of the ninth cranial nerve. In 1927, Temple Fay 6 published the results of his experience in sectioning various cranial nerves, including the vagus and upper cervical dorsal roots. He stressed the importance of the latter