Facial nerve palsy in children – is it as benign as supposed?

Aims: Facial nerve paralysis is a common disease in children. Most of the patients show complete recovery. We included exclusively pediatric patients in this single-center prospective cohort study. The aim was to investigate the outcome of all patients with facial nerve palsy.

Methods: Hospital records of all the patients admitted to the Children's Hospital in Linz between January 2005 and December 2010 with facial paralysis were reviewed. Patients with peripheral facial nerve palsy were invited for clinical re-evaluation between July 2011 and October 2011. House-Brackmann score (HBS) was used for reassessment.

Results: Fifty-six patients agreed to come for an additional clinical re-evaluation. According to their HBS study, participants were divided in two groups, group 1 (n = 44) with HBS < 2 were considered good outcome and group 2 (n = 12) with HBS > 2 showed persistent mild to moderate dysfunction of the facial nerve and were considered moderate outcome. The most important finding was the reported time to remission (p value of 0.003).

Conclusion: Our results indicate that facial paralysis in children is not as benign as supposed. We suggest informing patients and their guardians, that a slight face asymmetry may persist, but functional recovery in general is excellent.