Scientists improve facial paralysis
Tuesday, 17 Jul 2007 12:03
The procedure could help to improve patients' smiles
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US scientists have managed to help patients with facial paralysis to be able to smile again.
By using a technique known as temporalis tendon transfer (TTT) and intensive physical therapy before and after surgery researchers at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine reanimated the features of patients with different degrees of facial paralysis.
Seven patients were treated with TTT, where a muscle at the side of the head is cut at the point of where it joins to the jawbone and then stretched and reconnected to where the muscles of the mouth join together.
The physical therapy retrained the patients' facial muscles.
Writing in the journal Archives of Facial Plastic Surgery, the researchers report that four months after surgery "patient satisfaction was very high".
"Of a possible ten points, patients reported mean (average) satisfaction with appearance of 8.4, with feeding of 8.1, with speech of 8.7 and with smile function of 7.1," they said.
An average of 4.2mm was measured in movement in patients' mouth muscles.
Advantages of the surgery, the researchers claim, include its immediate effect and the predictability of its outcome.
"Temporalis tendon transfer is a relatively easy procedure to perform that has distinct advantages compared with other forms of facial reanimation and provides very good results," the researchers conclude.