Facial Palsy and Surgical Treatment Methods
Facial palsy, which is also known as facial paralysis, is called facial movement loss as a result of damage to the facial nerve fibers, which stimulate the facial mimic muscles from the brain, for various reasons. Facial paralysis may be congenital, may occur suddenly, or may develop gradually over a period of time.
In 1985, two otolaryngologists in Los Angeles, Dr. John W. House and Dr. Derald E. Brackman developed a classification to rate the levels of patients with facial paralysis. They named this classification as House-Brackman and graded them as 1,2,3,4,5 and 6.
As Karaaltın clinic, we would like to talk about the importance of early diagnosis and surgical techniques in facial paralysis in this article.
Many methods have been used in the treatment of this disease in the world, but unfortunately, excellent results have not been obtained. Even muscle transplants were performed in House-Brackman 6 facial palsy patients, but because the transplanted muscle was too large, larger facial asymmetries began to occur in the patients.
Seeing this situation, Dr. Karaaltın decided to deal with this disease and gave some thought to it, and finally, he discovered the technique of 'Facial paralysis surgery performed by transferring a very thin muscle from the top of the foot', which will be tried by him for the first time in the world, and entered the medical literature. This technique, which started to be taught in medical books, was given the name Karaaltın technique.
Now, as Karaaltın clinic, we have started to perform this surgery in two stages, which is a first in the world, by approaching facial paralysis in a holistic way. We first perform nerve transplantation in patients with House-Brackman 3,4 and 5. We connect a spare nerve from the leg to a spare nerve on the healthy side of the face and take the nerve to the immobile side, and in these patients, whom we usually catch in the early period, the result is incredibly successful and there is no need for muscle transplantation. In our patients with House-Brackman 6, we combine this surgery and perform nerve and muscle transplantation together. Thus, we have increased the chance of success of the surgery at a very serious rate.
