Intranasal Sphenopalatine Ganglion Blockade for Headaches Following Aneurysmal Subarachnoid Hemorrhage

May 21, 2026 updated by: John Terry, Wright State University

Intranasal Sphenopalatine Ganglion Blockade as a Non-invasive, Opioid-sparing Treatment for Headaches Following Aneurysmal Subarachnoid Hemorrhage

In patients with bleeding from a brain aneurysm, severe headache is the most common complaint. However, the pain is difficult to treat. The use of standard pain medications is common, but pain control remains poor. Additionally, pain medicines have multiple side effects including sedation, interference with breathing, intestinal cramping, low blood pressure, and the risk of addiction. In the present study, the investigators will examine the use of a medication to block the sphenopalatine ganglion which is a bundle of nerves that includes nerves that cause head pain. This block is performed by spraying numbing medication into the back of the nasal cavity on both sides. This particular pain medication does not have the side effects discussed above. The purpose of the study is to see if this treatment will decrease pain without causing unwanted side effects.

All patients in the study will receive standard pain medicine as needed for headache. Information will be collected from the patient's medical chart on the amount of pain medication used and the amount of pain the patient describes having. The average pain will be calculated for the first 24 hours the patient is in the hospital. At that point, the patient will receive pain medication sprayed into the back of the nasal cavity on both sides. Patients will also receive this treatment 3 days later. Following these treatments, information will be obtained on the average amount of pain, and how much other pain medication is used.

The investigators will look at the amount of pain and the amount of other pain medicine used over the first 24 hours before the nasal pain medicine treatment and compare it to the time after the treatments to see if the amount of pain decreases and if the amount of other pain medicine needed decreases as well. Six months after discharge, the patient will be contacted by phone to find out more information about how much head pain they had after discharge from the hospital.

Study Overview

Status

Recruiting

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

Spontaneous subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) accounts for up to 8% of strokes and affects approximately 30,000 individuals yearly in the US alone. Of those, ruptured intracranial aneurysm is the etiology up to 85% of the time. In these patients, severe headache is the most common complaint and its treatment is difficult and often inadequate. However, adequate. Opioids, often in escalating doses, are guideline recommended, but unfortunately they have significant side effects and are often not effective. There have been numerous trials looking at different treatments for the headache caused by SAH. There is an urgent need for an effective treatment with tolerable side effects. The pathophysiology of pain in aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage (aSAH) is not well elucidated.

It is likely related to vasoactive and inflammatory byproducts of blood degradation in the subarachnoid space. The intracranial vessels themselves are abundantly innervated, predominantly by branches of the maxillary nerve. The sphenopalatine ganglion (SPG) is a possible target for intervention, as blockade has been shown to be effective in cluster headaches. The SPG is located near the maxillary nerve, which may explain why blockade is also useful in several other head pain disorders. A small, single center pilot study of seven patients evaluated a bilateral suprazygomatic pterygopalatine fossa blockade as a treatment for headache, and all the patients had clinically significant reductions in reported pain. This study aims to evaluate whether intranasal SPG blockade could provide an effective and minimally invasive treatment option to improve pain and possibly reduce opioid requirements in these patients.

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Estimated)

20

Phase

  • Phase 4

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Contact

Study Locations

  • United States
    • Ohio
      • Dayton, Ohio, United States, 45409
        • Recruiting
        • Miami Valley Hospital

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

  • Adult
  • Older Adult

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• Patients aged 18 years or older who are being treated in the neurologic ICU for subarachnoid hemorrhage with Hunt and Hess scale of 0-3 (Scale ranges from 0 to 5 with higher numbers indicating more severe symptoms) and able to verbally report headache will be considered for inclusion in this study.

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Patients under the age of 18 years of age.
  • Patients with an allergy to lidocaine.
  • Patients from all vulnerable groups.
  • Patients with Hunt and Hess scale score of 4-5. (Scale ranges from 0 to 5 with higher numbers indicating more severe symptoms.)
  • Patients who are not able to consent.
  • Mentally impaired patients that are unable to provide consent.
  • Patients that are prisoners.
  • Pregnant patients.

Additionally, patients with contraindications to use of the Tx 360 device will be excluded. Contraindications include:

  • History of recurrent nose bleeds.
  • Nasal septal deformity such as cleft lip and palate, choanal atresia (narrowed nasal passages), atrophic rhinitis, rhinitis medicamentosa, septal perforation, nasal/midface trauma.
  • Recent nasal/sinus surgery
  • Presence of a bleeding disorder (eg., Von Willebrand's disease or hemophilia).
  • Severe respiratory distress.
  • Presence of angiofibroma, sinus tumor, or granulomatous disease of the nasopharynx.
  • Presence of nasal trauma.
  • Nasal congestion that has been present more than 10 days, high fever, or abnormal appearance of the nasal mucosa or mucus.

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: Treatment
  • Allocation: N/A
  • Interventional Model: Single Group Assignment
  • Masking: None (Open Label)

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Treatment arm
Drug: Lidocaine (drug)
Tx 360/lidocaine
Device: Tx 360
Tx 360 device

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Headache severity
Time Frame: Day 1 (day of consent) Patient receives first treatment. Pain will be recorded every 8 hours. Second treatment is on day 4. Pain will be recorded every 8 hours until discharge from the ICU, an average of 2 weeks, and at 6 months post discharge.
Description of headache severity using the headache numerical rating scale. The scale is a subjective rating of headache pain. The scale ranges from 0-10 with 0 being no pain (minimum value, better outcome) and 10 being the worst pain imaginable (maximum value, worse outcome).
Day 1 (day of consent) Patient receives first treatment. Pain will be recorded every 8 hours. Second treatment is on day 4. Pain will be recorded every 8 hours until discharge from the ICU, an average of 2 weeks, and at 6 months post discharge.

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Opioid dose
Time Frame: 2 weeks (or duration of hospitalization)
Amount of morphine equivalents/opioids used for pain control
2 weeks (or duration of hospitalization)

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

Wright State University

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

General Publications

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start (Actual)

May 20, 2024

Primary Completion (Estimated)

November 1, 2026

Study Completion (Estimated)

May 1, 2027

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

June 18, 2025

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

August 5, 2025

First Posted (Actual)

August 11, 2025

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

May 27, 2026

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

May 21, 2026

Last Verified

May 1, 2026

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • 2022-196

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?

NO

Drug and device information, study documents

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product

Yes

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product

No

product manufactured in and exported from the U.S.

No

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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