Abstract

This paper reports 138 patients with trauma of the temporal bone seen at our Department from May, 1975 to September, 1990. Thirty-seven of them suffered from facial palsy. Twenty-two patients, 21 with longitudinal fracture and 1 with transverse fractures, were treated surgically. At surgery, temporal bone fracture was found to reach the geniculate ganglionic f ossa in 11 patients. The facial nerves were decompressed to the geniculate ganglion. Surgery was indicated for facial palsy which occurred simultaneously with trauma, which failed to improve for 2-3 weeks after trauma and which was accompanied by increasing dysfunction of the electroneuromuscular response, conductive deafness and epidermal retraction into the fracture line. Significant improvement following decompression surgery was demonstrated in some patients. The sequelae following traumatic facial nerve palsy were quantitatively analyzed.