Facial paralysis due to benign parotid tumors

On rare occasions, facial paralysis associated with a parotid tumor need not denote malignancy. We present two cases in which, contrary to appropriate conventional wisdom, facial paralysis resulted from benign mixed tumors. Each patient presented over 8 years following primary surgical excision. In neither patient was a mass palpable, and facial paralysis was the sole sign of recurrent disease. Each patient had been followed up for several months with a presumptive diagnosis of Bell's palsy prior to discovery of recurrent tumor by radiologic imaging. In each case, at operation the tumor was found to infiltrate the temporal bone via the stylomastoid foramen. Facial paralysis presumably resulted from extrinsic compression of the facial nerve. These two cases add to the few previous reports of facial paralysis due to benign parotid gland tumors.