Is antiviral medication for severe Bell's palsy still useful?

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

7 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 14 citations in OpenAlex.

1. Bell's palsy.BMJ clinical evidence · 2014
   Pooled it
2. Hyperbaric oxygen therapy for Bell's palsy.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2012
   Pooled it
3. Bell's palsy.BMJ clinical evidence · 2011
   Pooled it
4. Evaluation of Factors Associated With Favorable Outcomes in Adults With Bell Palsy.JAMA otolaryngology-- head & neck surgery · 2020
   Article
5. Reactivation of type 1 herpes simplex virus and varicella zoster virus in an immunosuppressed patient with acute peripheral facial weakness.Journal of the neurological sciences · 2012
   Article
6. [Diseases of the facial nerve].HNO · 2010
   Article
7. Herpes simplex virus type 1 and Bell's palsy-a current assessment of the controversy.Journal of neurovirology · 2010
   Review

Corrections and comments

• Comment on
  Bell's palsy--is glucocorticoid treatment enough?2007
• Comment on
  Prednisolone and valaciclovir in Bell's palsy: a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled, multicentre trial.2008
• Comment on
  Treatment of Bell's palsy--the pendulum has swung back to steroids alone.2008

Authors and funding

3 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

Abstract

PubMed holds no abstract for this paper.

Indexed as