Post-traumatic Delayed Peripheral Facial Palsy

Abstract

Peripheral facial palsy in children is very rare in comparison to adults. The most common cause is idiopathic. Another rare cause of peripheral facial palsy in children is trauma. It occurs after head trauma, mostly due to temporal bone fracture as an early onset paralysis after trauma. Early onset facial palsy is usually due to direct damage to the facial nerve whereas there is some controversy about the etiology of late onset facial palsy. In this article, a child patient whose peripheral facial palsy developed six days after a head injury is presented, and the etiopathogenesis and the treatment of delayed traumatic facial palsy after temporal bone fracture is discussed.