[Treatment of focal dystonia with botulinic toxin]

Dystonia is a neurologic disease characterized by involuntary repetitive muscular contractions which frequently causes torsion, spasmodic movements or abnormal postures. Pharmacologic and surgical treatment had been unsatisfactory in the majority of the cases. Intramuscular botulinic toxin application in focal dystonia disorders, achieve relief in approximately 90% of the cases by quimiodenervation. We included 35 patients with focal dystonia treated between November 1994 through June 1996: 14 facial hemispasm, nine blepharospasm, five cervical dystonia, two writer's cramps, one oromandibular dystonia and four patients with mixed focal dystonia. Improvement between 50-90% was observed in 32/34 (94%) of the patients; one case (2.8%) with therapeutic failure and one case (2.8%) never returned to quantify the response. Actually, botulinic toxin is the first choice treatment of focal dystonia and other diseases related to involuntary muscle spasm.