ArticleNature clinical practice. Neurology2009
Prednisolone--but not antiviral drugs--improves outcome in patients with Bell's palsy.
Article in Nature clinical practice. Neurology, 2009. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed, 8 citations in OpenAlex.
- Trial
- Treatment of Bell's Palsy Using Monochromatic Infrared Energy: A Report of 2 Cases.Journal of chiropractic medicine · 2014Article
- Neuro-ophthalmologic complications and manifestations of upper and lower motor neuron facial paresis.Current neurology and neuroscience reports · 2010Review
- [Diseases of the facial nerve].HNO · 2010Article
Corrections and comments
- Comment on
Authors and funding
1 author at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trials have provided compelling evidence that treatment with prednisolone improves outcome in patients with acute idiopathic peripheral facial (Bell's) palsy. The low rate of adverse effects, the small number needed to treat, and the modest cost of therapy indicate that prednisolone should be used in all patients with facial palsy of <72 h duration who do not have contraindications to steroid therapy. By contrast, the best-designed recent clinical trials have failed to suggest any significant beneficial effect on Bell's palsy of treatment with acyclovir or valacyclovir, either as single agents or in combination with prednisolone. Antiviral therapy should not, therefore, be routinely used in the treatment of Bell's palsy.
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.