Potential Association Between COVID-19 Vaccination and Facial Palsy: Three Cases With Neuroimaging Findings

Acute onset Facial palsy was reported in four vaccinated participants in the BNT162b2 (Pfizer-BioNTech) vaccine clinical trials published on December 10, 2020. So far, few cases of Facial palsy among the mRNA vaccine groups have been previously documented in the literature. Facial palsy is cited as medically attended adverse event following immunization on April 12, 2021, after the first dose of the approved Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccines for preventive immunization for SARS-CoV-2 is administrated to the population in Turkey. This study is aimed to describe clinical and magnetic resonance imaging features of three patients, who developed acute onset peripheral facial paralysis after administration of the BNT162b2 vaccine, without any previous medical condition. The first patient presented with right sided facial palsy within the same day following the vaccine was administrated, while the second patient presented with left sided facial palsy 2 months after vaccination. The third patient, on the other hand, presented with right sided facial palsy and abducens nerve (CN VI) paralysis two days after vaccine was administrated.