The most common typical cranial neuralgia is trigeminal neuralgia. Trigeminal neuralgia has a incidence range from about 4~5/100,000/year, but glossopharyngeal neuralgia incidence is 1/70~1/100 that of trigeminal neuralgia. Trigeminal neuralgia and glossopharyngeal neuralgia have similar clinical symptom except for the distribution of the pain and the customary site of the triggering stimulus. Trigeminal neuralgia in mandibular division is sometimes mistaken for the glossopharyngeal neuralgia. We report an our experience that a differential diagnosis for mandibular division of trigeminal neuralgia and glossopharyngeal neuralgia in the patient who had paroxysmal pain in submandibular area was performed by the mandibular nerve test block with local anesthetics.

Keywordsdifferential diagnosis, glossopharyngeal neuralgia, trigeminal neuralgia.