Comparison of Facial Palsy Cases Before and During the Pandemic Coronavirus Disease-2019

Abstract

Objective: The pandemic coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) is caused by a novel type of coronavirus named severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 and is rapidly spreading all over the world. In addition to various neurological symptoms, acute facial palsy was diagnosed as the main neurological symptom in some COVID-19 patients. The current study aimed to analyze the variation and any possible association in the case numbers or medical symptoms of patients with facial palsy before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.Methods: The clinical files of patients who were diagnosed with facial palsy in the Neurology Department of Medicalpoint Hospital, University of Economics Faculty of Medicine, Izmir were retrospectively investigated. To compare the facial palsy cases according to different periods, two patient groups were formed: before the COVID-19 pandemic and during the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic group was further divided into two subgroups as COVID-19-positive and COVID-19-negative patients to compare the effects of COVID-19 on facial palsy.Results: During the specified COVID-19 period (May 2020-January 2021) of the study, 38 patients were admitted to the hospital for facial palsy; 34 facial palsy patients were admitted in the same calendar period as the two previous years (May 2018-January 2019). There was no significant difference in the frequency of facial palsy between these two time periods. There were significant differences between before and during the COVID-19 pandemic groups regarding response to cortisone therapy (p<0.001), facial palsy grade (p<0.001), electromyography findings (p=0.005), denervation (p<0.001), and 6 months recovery (p<0.001) data. There were also significant differences between the COVID-19-positive and COVID-19-negative subgroups regarding response to cortisone therapy (p=0.015) and facial palsy grade (p=0.001).Conclusion: The current study findings support the possible association between the severity of the clinical course of facial palsy and COVID-19. Further studies are needed to prove a direct association between facial palsy and COVID-19.