You are here

Article Text

Article menu
PDF
Therapeutics
Randomised controlled trial
Combination therapy of steroids and antivirals improves the recovery rate in patients with severe Bell's palsy
  1. J Alexander De Ru1,
  2. Peter Paul G Van Benthem2
  1. 1 Central Military Hospital, Utrecht, The Netherlands;
  2. 2 Department of Otolaryngology, Head Neck Surgery, Gelre Ziekenhuizen Apeldoorn, Apeldoorn, The Netherlands
  1. Correspondence to: Dr J Alexander De Ru, Central Military Hospital, Lundlaan 1, Utrecht 3584 CX, The Netherlands; j.a.deru{at}umcutrecht.nl

http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/eb-2013-101383

Statistics from Altmetric.com

    Commentary on: Lee HY, Byun JY, Park MS, et al. Steroid-antiviral treatment improves the recovery rate in patients with severe Bell's palsy. Am J Med 2013;126:336–41.OpenUrlCrossRefPubMed

    Context

    Bell's palsy is an acute, peripheral facial paresis of unknown cause. Fortunately, many patients with Bell's palsy recover completely. However, about 15% end up with sequelae. The more severe the initial paresis, the poorer the patient's prognosis. Age is also an influencing factor, with less than 50% of patients aged over 60 achieving complete recovery.1

    The existing literature suggests that Bell's palsy is caused by a reactivation of herpes simplex virus type 1 and in some cases of varicella zoster virus (sine herpete). The inflammatory reaction against the virus causes swelling of the nerve, which consequently …

    View Full Text

    Request Permissions

    If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

    Copyright information:

    Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under a licence) please go to http://group.bmj.com/group/rights-licensing/permissions