Effects of Surgical Timing of Facial Nerve Decompression for Patients With Severe Bell's Palsy.

CONTEXT: Bell's palsy is a form of idiopathic, facial nerve palsy. Initial treatment includes the use of oral corticosteroids and/or antiviral agents, but facial paralysis may persist. Some surgeons suggest that surgical decompression of the facial nerve can be a beneficial, but the optimal surgical approach, extent of nerve decompression, and timing of surgery remain unclear.

OBJECTIVE

This study intended to evaluate the efficacy of delayed, facial nerve decompression for severe Bell's palsy (BP) and to explore the relationship of opportunity timing for operations, with postoperative recovery for facial nerve function.

DESIGN

The research team performed a retrospective study.

SETTING

The study took place at Beijing Tiantan Hospital of Capital Medical University in Beijing, China.

PARTICIPANTS

Participants were 45 patients who had been diagnosed with BP between 2015 and 2021 and who had undergone facial nerve decompression using the transmastoid approach, between 30 and 180 days after the onset of BP. According to the operation's timing, the research team divided the participants into three groups, consisting of participants who underwent surgery: (1) at 30-60-days after BP onset-19 participants, (2) at 61-90 days after BP onset-18 participants, and (3) at more than 90 days after BP onset-8 participants.

OUTCOME MEASURES: The research team: (1) analyzed participants' demographic and preoperative and postoperative clinical characteristics, (2) compared the surgical outcomes with participants' House-Brackmann (HB) scales, and (3) analyzed the factors affecting the recovery of facial nerve function using logistic regression.

RESULTS

Decompression surgery was effective for 29 participants (64.4%), with similar rates for participants who underwent surgery after 30-60 days (73.7%) and 61-90 days (77.8%), but the surgery' success was significantly higher for those groups than for participants who underwent surgery after >90 days (12.5%), with P = .008 and P = .003, respectively. Multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that disease duration was the only factor significantly associated with the effectiveness of surgery (odds ratio = 120.337; 95% confidence interval 2.997-4832.267, P = .011).

CONCLUSIONS

For patients with severe Bell's palsy with ineffective conservative treatment, surgery performed 30 to 90 days after the onset of paralysis can have therapeutic benefits, whereas surgery performed after 3 months is relatively ineffective.