[Treatment of peripheral facial paralysis with ultrasound].

In a survey on the onset of peripheral facial paralysis, the roll of hypertension in the stylomastoid canal compressing the facial nerve is underlined. Intracanalicular hypertension is due to edema resulting from capillary vasodilatation, secondary to anoxia due to a regional vasospasm. When return channels of local circulation are blocked, the edema is further stabilized. Consequent nervous blockage however, very often does not go beyond the functional level; prompt recovery in the majority of cases after hypertension is averted, confirms this assertion. Nevertheless, current treatments seem to have little effect on Bell's palsy. In the present experiment, daily ultrasound irradiations of the mastoid process were tried on 30 cases of peripheral facial paralysis. Results give evidence that this therapy has particular efficiency when applied early in the course of the paralysis, before the onset of Wallerian degeneration. Integral cure or nearly complete recovery was attained before the 20 th sitting in 14 cases out of 15 patients where treatment was begun before the 8 th day of paralysis. The efficiency of ultrasound therapy proved to be less marked when applied with delay or applied on subjects with unhealthy systemic condition. Improvement in some of these cases was evident though and dependent on the presence and quantity of nervous fibres having escaped Wallerian degeneration.