According to a systematic review and meta-analysis of previously published studies, reported in the September 2 issue of JAMA, patients suffering from Bell Palsy can expect great benefits from a treatment methodology concerned around a combination of corticosteroids and antiviral agents.

It was suggested such a combination is better than treatment with corticosteroids alone as that is associated with a reduced risk of an unsatisfactory recovery.

From News-Medical.Net:

John R. de Almeida, M.D., from Sunnybrook Hospital and the University of Toronto, Canada, and colleagues conducted a search of the medical literature for randomized controlled trials comparing treatment with either corticosteroids or antiviral agents with a control measuring unsatisfactory facial recovery (four months or more), unsatisfactory short-term recovery (six weeks to less than four months), synkinesis and autonomic dysfunction, or adverse effects. The authors identified 854 studies, of which 18 were eligible for inclusion for evaluation. The 18 studies included 2,786 patients and were conducted in 12 countries and five continents.

“… high-quality evidence suggests that corticosteroids alone reduce the risk of unsatisfactory recovery by 9 percent in absolute terms, with a NNTB (number of patients needed to treat for one patient to experience benefit) of 11,” the authors report. “Corticosteroid therapy combined with antiviral agents reduced the risk of unsatisfactory recovery compared with antiviral agents alone. Corticosteroids were also associated with a 14 percent absolute risk reduction of synkinesis and autonomic dysfunction (NNTB, 7; moderate quality of evidence). Corticosteroids were not associated with an increased risk of adverse effects.”

The authors wrote that the results suggest a likely incremental benefit of antiviral agents in addition to corticosteroids, with an absolute risk minimization of five percent compared with corticosteroids alone.

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