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CLINICAL ANALYSIS OF BILATERAL SIMULTANEOUS FACIAL NERVE PALSY CASES

Young Ho Kim1, Jae Ho Ban2, Chang Hyun Cho3, Joong Ho Ahn4, Jong Woo Chung4

1Department of Otolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery, Seoul National University, Boramae Hospital, Seoul, Korea/2Department of Otolaryngology, Kangbuk Samsung Hospital, Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine, Seoul, Korea/3Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Gil Medical Center, Gachon University, Incheon, Korea/4Department of Otolaryngology, Asan Medical Center, College of Medicine, University of Ulsan, Seoul, Korea

Bilateral simultaneous facial nerve palsy is an extremely rare condition. Unlike the unilateral form, bilateral facial paralysis appears often as a special finding in a symptom complex of a systemic disease requiring urgent medical interventions, including Lyme disease, Guillian-Barre syndrome, leukemia, sarcoidosis, bacterial meningitis, syphilis, leprosy, Moebius syndrome, infectious mononucleosis. The aim of this study is a review of 9 patients diagnosed as the bilateral simultaneous facial nerve palsy in four hospitals from 1997 to 2006. Bell's palsy was the most common cause (6 of 9 cases, 66.7%) and causes of remaining three cases were infectious mononucleosis (11.1%), Herpes-Zoster oticus (11.1%), and head trauma (11.1%), respectively. The clinical analysis including age at presentation, sex ratio, degree of facial paralysis, treatment, and duration of recovery is reported and prognosis of bilateral simultaneous facial nerve palsy according to the cause is discussed.