Abstract
Patients presenting with Bell's palsy are often treated by a modification of Stennert's method in Japan. In cases with the addition of antiviral agents, there is little information about the most appropriate antiviral drugs to use. We compared the efficacy of treatment of Bell's palsy with acyclovir (ACV) or valaciclovir (VACV). The minimum score of palsy was lower in the VACV group than that in the ACV group. However, the success rate of treatment and the duration until recovery were not substantially different between the two groups. These results suggest that VACV may therefore be more useful in the treatment of patients with Bell's palsy than ACV, considering that the intravenous administration of ACV may lead to nervous injury, and that VACV can be administered three times a day, but ACV must be administered five times a day.
