A Comparison between Prednisolon and Acyclovir Regimen With Prednisolone Alone in Treatment of Bell’s Palsy

The most common disease of the facial nerve is Bell’s palsy. The recent finding of viral genome surrounding the seventh nerve suggests that antiviral agents may be useful in the management of Bell’s palsy. The use of Acyclovir and Corticosteroid in combination was under study for treatment of this disease.

The present study aim was to compare Prednisolon and Acyclovir regimen with Prednisolone alone in treatment of Bell’s palsy.

Our study was double blind, and for comparison outcomes between two groups, we used the t-test, Fisher’s exact test and Chi2 analysis. We compared the final outcome of 65 patients with Bell’s palsy, in Rasht, treated with either acyclovir-prednisolone (33 patient) or prednisolone alone (32 patients). For patients receiving Acyclovir, the dosage was 2000mg (400 mg 5 times daily) for five days. The dosage of Prednisolone in both groups of patients was 60 mg daily for the first week and then tapered. The time of complete improvement in all patients was recorded.

Final Complete improvement did not differ between two groups, but in Acyclovir- Prednisolone group, improvement was earlier (mean duration of improvement in Acyclovir- Prednisolone group was 23.79.8 days but in Prednisolone group was 36.9 day’s, P=0.0001).

We conclude that adding Acyclovir to Corticosteroids can reduce the time of improvement but does not alter final recovery.