Dr. Raymond Sekula Leads at the 2025 Facial Pain Association Annual Patient Meeting
Last week Dr. Raymond Sekula traveled to the Facial Pain Association’s Annual Meeting in Minneapolis where the FPA hosted physicians, patients and families and industry leaders for an exciting in-person conference highlighting some of the latest innovations to care and hopes for the future. Currently Dr. Sekula serves as Chair of the FPA’s Medical Advisory Board and helps to lead conversations in this specialty, evaluating the latest in patient care and sharing lessons learned from his over 2K trigeminal neuralgia procedures completed throughout his career.
Dr. Sekula served as one of the speakers for “The Facial Pain Registry — Why Is It Important?” In partnership with the National Organization for Rare Disorders (NORD®) the FPA has launched the Facial Pain Registry, a study with global reach to learn more about neuropathic facial pain. The study will include trigeminal neuralgia (TN) along with other cranial neuralgias. TN is the most common form of neuropathic facial pain, causing severe pain that can present as sharp, electric shock like or a dull throbbing and aching, varying in intensity and length per episode. Left misdiagnosed and/or untreated, facial pain can have debilitating effects on a person’s life.
Says Dr. Sekula, “By gathering information on individuals with a specific condition, registries like the FPA’s, allow for a better understanding of the natural history of the disease and can identify risk factors for the development of the disease,” He continued. “In addition, registries can be used to evaluate the effectiveness of new treatment and to monitor safety of those new treatments. Ultimately, registries play a vital role in advancing medical research and improving patient care. The FPA’s staff, Board of Directors, members of the Medical Advisory Board, and outside advisors have spent more than two years carefully designing and crafting a registry in partnership with the National Organization for Rare Disorders (NORD®) to provide a registry that is mobile-friendly, secure, easy-to-use, and most importantly, holds the potential to really help patients with facial pain in the near and distant future.”
“This new study has tremendous promise to build strong partnerships and engage the patient community to address current knowledge gaps for facial pain. NORD is thrilled to be a part of driving research and innovation-based outcomes for all the families in the facial pain community,” said Janine Lewis, Director of Research Operations, NORD.
“The Facial Pain Registry is a great opportunity for the facial pain community to tell their unique stories and let data inform the work being done by researchers,” said Melissa Baumbick, CEO of Facial Pain Association. “The success of the registry is dependent upon community participation. Our goal is to enroll anyone, and everyone affected by neuropathic facial pain, including trigeminal neuralgia and other cranial neuralgias.”
Following Dr. Sekula presented, “A Treatment Algorithm for the Surgical Management of Trigeminal Neuropathic Pain, Including Ablative Procedures.” Dr. Sekula shares, "The opportunity, post-pandemic, to join those individuals suffering with various forms of facial pain with interested medical and surgical experts was very special. It was a great weekend!"
Columbia Neurosurgery is a proud supporter of the FPA and together we look forward to continuing our work together to find new treatments and therapies that serve all those affected by facial pain.
