Facial nerve disorders encompass a broad spectrum of dysfunction, ranging from subtle dynamic facial asymmetry to complete, dense paralysis. Facial nerve regeneration following injury can vary greatly and may result in hypofunction (persistent weakness or poor excursion of facial muscles), hyperfunction (hypertonicity, spasm), or aberrant regeneration (synkinesis). The impact of a facial nerve ...

Facial nerve paralysis can result from a number of causes, including neoplasms, Bell’s palsy, infections, trauma, congenital conditions, and idiopathic processes. Both the medical and social consequences of facial nerve paralysis can be distressing for patients. The most significant ophthalmic consequence of facial nerve paralysis is loss of function of the orbicularis oculi muscle. The complet...

IMPORTANCE Neuromuscular reanimation of the face provides the correct specific neural functional input and thereby prevents synkinesis. Unfortunately, this ideal situation is rarely encountered in the clinical setting. OBJECTIVES To assess the technical feasibility of and define the surgical procedure for harvesting the sternohyoid muscle as a novel free flap for use in facial reanimation ind...

INTRODUCTION Hypogonadotropic hypogonadism (HH) is a heterogeneous disease caused by mutations in several genes. Based on the presence of hyposmia/anosmia it is distinguished into Kallmann syndrome (KS) and isolated HH. The prevalence of other developmental anomalies is not well established. METHODS We studied 36 patients with HH (31 males, 5 females, mean age 41.5), 9 with familial and 27 wi...

The treatment of Bell's palsy (BP), based on steroids and/or antiviral drugs, may still leave a certain percentage of affected subjects with disfiguring sequelae due to incomplete recovery. The different procedures of physical rehabilitation have not been demonstrated to play a favourable role in this disorder. The aim of the present study was to compare functional outcomes in severe cases of B...

The aim of this study was to compare the recovery of long-term facial nerve function between patients who received sural grafts and those who underwent hypoglossal-facial anastomosis techniques following translabyrinthine vestibular schwannoma surgery. This study included 25 patients with vestibular schwannomas treated with translabyrinthine tumor removal. All patients had large tumors with a m...

Traditionally, idiopathic hypogonadotropic hypogonadism (IHH) is divided into two major categories: Kallmann syndrome (KS) and normosmic IHH (nIHH). To date, inactivating variants in more than 50 genes have been reported to cause IHH. These mutations are estimated to account for up to 50% of all apparently hereditary cases. Identification of further causative gene mutations is expected to be mo...

BACKGROUND Corticosteroids are widely used in the treatment of idiopathic facial paralysis (Bell's palsy), but the effectiveness of additional treatment with an antiviral agent is uncertain. Significant morbidity can be associated with severe cases of Bell's palsy. OBJECTIVES To assess the effects of antiviral treatments alone or in combination with any other therapy for Bell's palsy. SEARC...

OBJECTIVE To describe the surgical technique of botulinum-A toxin injection into the cremasteric muscles of a 26-year-old male with bilateral cremasteric muscle spasms causing significant pain and limitation of activity. This pain has been refractory to multiple previous therapies, including inguinal nerve blocks and bilateral orchidopexies with cremasteric muscle lysis. Multiple imaging modali...

Global synkineses are stereotyped involuntary muscle activities or movements that occur on the paretic limbs of stroke subjects during voluntary movements or efforts realized on the paretic or non paretic side. Involuntary muscle activities on the affected upper limb of 11 hemiparetic subjects (HS) and on the left or right upper limb of 10 control subjects (CS) were recorded using surface elect...