[Sequelae of peripheral facial palsy]

The purpose of this work is to study the functional sequelae after peripheral facial palsy (PFP) to analyze its impact and relationship with the degree of facial nerve dysfunction, from the neurophysiological point of view.

We present a retrospective study which includes a total of 150 cases of peripheral facial palsy. All patients underwent electroneurography and electromyography to see the degree of axonal damage and to evaluate the existence of signs of reinervation in the muscles explored or possible innervation errors.

Of the patients studied, 31.9% (46) had sequelae; 67.4% (31) were women, a statistically significant result (P=.031). Of all the sequelae, the most frequent was miochymia which appeared in 24% of cases (36). Patients with left side involvement presented a higher number of sequelae (40.3%, 27 cases) with a statistically significant difference (P=.05). The average rate of axonal injury on first visit by patients who subsequently developed sequelae was 75.26%; worse results on electroneurography were statistically associated with the onset of sequelae (P=.007). Electromyography of patients with sequelae shows that a greater degree of denervation could be considered a risk factor for the occurrence of sequelae (P=.039).

In our study we found that sequelae are more frequent after facial palsy when there is significant axonal loss. This work shows other risk factors so far not mentioned in the literature, such as female gender and left-side involvement.