Stapedial reflex in non recurrent and recurrent Bell's palsy.

The clinical relationship of the stapedial reflex with the facial function has been investigated to evaluate its prognostic accuracy in a group of non recurrent and recurrent Bell's palsy patients. One hundred and fifty-eight consecutive patients were examined. One hundred and thirty-three presented a unilateral non recurrent palsy, 16 a unilateral recurrent paralysis, while the remaining 9 complained an alternating paralysis. In the unilateral non recurrent Bell's palsy a good correlation between the evolution of the stapedial reflex and the recovery of facial function was found. This observation was not seen in the other types of paralysis. The conclusion of this paper demonstrates that the stapedial reflex is a reliable prognostic indicator only in the non recurrent Bell's palsy.