Recent developments in Bell's palsy: Trial for Bell's palsy is in progress in Scotland

doi:10.1136/bmj.329.7474.1103-c

BMJ 2004;329:1103-1104 (6 November), doi:10.1136/bmj.329.7474.1103-c

Letter

Recent developments in Bell's palsy

Trial for Bell's palsy is in progress in Scotland

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR—Holland and Weiner's clinical review (albeit atraditional non-systematic, opinion based one) on the importanttopic of Bell's palsy is welcome,¹ but we are concerned thattheir conclusions about treatment are simply not supported bycurrent evidence.

The most recent Cochrane reviews show that no treatment hasyet been shown to be more effective than placebo.^2
3 The recentstudies cited have not yet been included in the systematic reviewsbut since they are non-randomised, statements that combinationtherapy is beneficial are not secure.⁴ Since these treatmentsare neither inexpensive nor harmless, the issue is importantfor clinicians, patients, and the health service.

The review by the American Academy of Neurology cited by Hollandand Weiner concluded that well designed studies of the effectivenessof treatments for Bell's palsy are still needed. Published trialsare mainly hospital based and involve small numbers.⁵ We arerunning a trial that avoids . . . [Full text of this article]

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Frank Sullivan, principal investigator

f.m.sullivan@dundee.ac.uk

Fergus Daly, trial coordinator

Community Health Sciences, University of Dundee, Dundee

Iain Swan, senior lecturer in otolaryngology

University of Glasgow, Glasgow