Facial nerve repair; the outcome & the prognostic factors

Facial nerve repair; the outcome & the prognostic factors
Mohsen Rajati, Kamran Khazaeni

Introduction: Facial nerve injury is a fairly common problem to ENT surgeons. Depending on the type of damage, various management techniques have been proposed. In this study, we are reporting our experience with repairing facial nerve at our tertiary referral center in northeast of Iran.

Methods: patients with facial nerve paralysis who were anastomosed (directly or with a graft) were selected in this study and the descriptive data and outcome were analyzed.

Results: thirty six patients with the mean age of 36.5, were included in this study. Male to female ratio was 16:15. The causes of paralysis were as follow: tumors (21 cases), trauma (10 cases), iatrogenic (4 cases) and cholesteatoma (1 case). The repair technique was cable graft in 27 cases, end-to-end anastomosis in 9 cases and 12-7 anastomosis in 1 case.

Conclusion: there are different management strategy for facial nerve damages. The
more peripheral injuries and the sooner the repair is done, the better the outcome
would be.