Objective: To explore the diagnosis, surgical management and outcome of jugular foramen chondrosarcoma (CSA). Methods: Fifteen patients with jugular foramen CSA hospitalized in the Department of Otorhinolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery of Chinese PLA General Hospital from December 2002 to February 2020 were retrospectively collected,of whom 2 were male and 13 were female, aging from 22 to 61 years old. The clinical symptoms and signs, imaging features, differential diagnosis, surgical approaches, function of facial nerve and cranial nerves IX to XII, and surgical outcomes were analyzed. Results: Patients with jugular foramen CSA mainly presented with facial paralysis, hearing loss, hoarseness, cough, tinnitus and local mass. Computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance (MR) could provide important information for diagnosis. CT showed irregular destruction on bone margin of the jugular foramen. MR demonstrated iso or hypointense on T1WI, hyperintense on T2WI and heterogeneous contrast-enhancement. Surgical approaches were chosen upon the sizes and scopes of the tumors. Inferior temporal fossa A approach was adopted in 12 cases, inferior temporal fossa B approach in 2 cases and mastoid combined parotid approach in 1 case. Five patients with facial nerve involved received great auricular nerve graft. The House Brackmann (H-B) grading scale was used to evaluate the facial nerve function. Preoperative facial nerve function ranked grade Ⅴ in 4 cases and grade Ⅵ in 1 case. Postoperative facial nerve function improved to grade Ⅲ in 2 cases and grade Ⅵ in 3 cases. Five patients presented with cranial nerves Ⅸ and Ⅹ palsies. Hoarseness and cough of 2 cases improved after operation, while the other 3 cases did not. All the patients were diagnosed CSA by histopathology and immunohistochemistry, with immunohistochemical staining showing vimentin and S-100 positive, but cytokeratin negative in tumor cells. All patients survived during 28 to 234 months' follow-up. Two patients suffered from tumor recurrence 7 years after surgery and received revision surgery. No complications such as cerebrospinal fluid leakage and intracranial infection occurred after operation. Conclusions: Jugular foramen CSA lacks characteristic symptoms or signs. Imaging is helpful to differential diagnosis. Surgery is the primary treatment of jugular foramen CSA. Patients with facial paralysis should receive surgery in time as to restore the facial nerve. Long-term follow-up is necessary after surgery in case of recurrence.
Humans ; Male ; Female ; Young Adult ; Adult ; Middle Aged ; Facial Paralysis/etiology* ; Diagnosis, Differential ; Jugular Foramina ; Retrospective Studies ; Cough ; Hoarseness ; Neoplasm Recurrence, Local ; Chondrosarcoma/surgery*

This paper reviews some recent studies on the recognition and evaluation of facial paralysis based on artificial intelligence. The research methods can be divided into two categories: facial paralysis evaluation based on artificial selection of patients' facial image eigenvalues and facial paralysis evaluation based on neural network and patients' facial images. The analysis shows that the method of manual selection of eigenvalues is suitable for small sample size, but the classification effect of adjacent ratings of facial paralysis needs to be further optimized. The neural network method can distinguish the neighboring grades of facial paralysis relatively well, but it has a higher requirement for sample size. Both of the two methods have good prospects. The features that are more closely related to the evaluation scale are selected manually, and the common development direction may be to extract the time-domain features, so as to achieve the purpose of improving the evaluation accuracy of facial paralysis.
Artificial Intelligence ; Face ; Facial Paralysis/diagnosis* ; Humans ; Neural Networks, Computer

Herpes zoster oticus is one of complication of varicella zoster virus (VZV) reactivation in the geniculate ganglion of the facial nerve, which is the most common presentation of herpes zoster in the head and neck region. However, VZV infection of the larynx has rarely been described in the literature compared with Herpes zoster oticus. Moreover, zoster laryngopharyngitis simultaneously occurred with recurred Herpes zoster oticus which has no newly developing motor dysfunction has not been reported yet. Therefore, these diseases are difficult to diagnose due to its rareness. However, distinctive appearances such as unilateral herpetic mucosal eruptions and vesicles are useful and essential in making a quick and accurate diagnosis. Thus, we report a characteristic case of zoster laryngopharyngitis simultaneously occurred with recurred Herpes zoster oticus not accompanied by any newly developing motor palsy.
Diagnosis ; Facial Nerve ; Geniculate Ganglion ; Head ; Herpes Zoster Oticus ; Herpes Zoster ; Herpesvirus 3, Human ; Larynx ; Neck ; Paralysis ; Vocal Cord Paralysis ; Vocal Cords

A 49-year-old male presented with horizontal binocular diplopia without facial pain or skin lesion. Limitation of medial gaze in the left eye was revealed on neurological examination, which is accompanied by peripheral facial nerve palsy ipsilaterally. The diagnosis had been made based on the diffusion restriction lesion of left pontine tegmentum. We may denominate a “seven-and-a-half syndrome” and clinician should maintain a high level of awareness of the various syndromes associated with pontine lesions.
Diagnosis ; Diffusion ; Diplopia ; Facial Nerve ; Facial Pain ; Facial Paralysis ; Humans ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Neurologic Examination ; Ocular Motility Disorders ; Paralysis ; Pontine Tegmentum ; Skin ; Telescopes

Schwannoma is a benign tumor rarely found in the head and neck and much less commonly found in the intraparotid facial nerve. It is a slow-growing encapsulated tumor originating from the Schwann cells or axonal nerve sheath. It can occur anywhere along the course of the facial nerve. Patients may present with symptoms of facial palsy, but the most common presenting symptom is an asymptomatic swelling. Diagnosis is usually difficult before surgical removal and histopathological examination. We report a rare case of intraparotid facial nerve schwannoma in a 57-year-old female who had sustained a mass of the right preauricular area for 3 years. She reported no pain or facial muscle weakness. Enhanced computed tomography findings revealed the impression of pleomorphic adenoma. However, intraoperative gross findings were not characteristic of pleomorphic adenoma, and a frozen biopsy was performed resulting in the impression of a nerve sheath tumor. We performed an extracapsular surgical excision without parotidectomy. Permanent histopathology and immunohistochemistry reports diagnosed the mass as schwannoma. There were no complications including facial palsy after surgery. No recurrence was found at 6 months after surgery
Adenoma, Pleomorphic ; Axons ; Biopsy ; Diagnosis ; Facial Muscles ; Facial Nerve ; Facial Paralysis ; Female ; Head ; Humans ; Immunohistochemistry ; Middle Aged ; Neck ; Neurilemmoma ; Parotid Gland ; Recurrence ; Schwann Cells

OBJECTIVES: The purposes of this study were to evaluate the clinical characteristics of temporal bone metastasis (TBM) and to determine whether the characteristics differed according to primary malignancy. METHODS: We retrospectively analyzed data on 20 patients diagnosed with TBM between January 2000 and January 2017. Demographics, the period from diagnosis of primary malignancy to TBM diagnosis, the period from TBM diagnosis to death, the type and staging of primary malignancy, otologic manifestations, and TBM sites were assessed. After the primary malignancies were divided into solid cancers and hematologic malignancies, each parameter was compared between the two groups. RESULTS: The most common primary malignancy with TBM was lung cancer (45%). The most common otologic symptoms and signs were facial palsy (30.5%) and hearing loss (30.5%). The temporal squama (23%) and the facial nerve (20%) were the most commonly involved. Most TBMs occurred late in the disease process after the primary malignancy first metastasized to other organs. Hematologic malignancies metastasized significantly more frequently to the external auditory canal and the middle ear/mastoid compared to solid cancers (P=0.001 and P=0.004, respectively). CONCLUSION: If otologic manifestations such as facial palsy and hearing loss are presented in patients at advanced stages of malignancy, TBM of primary malignancy should be suspected. In addition, hematologic malignancies tend to metastasize to the external auditory canal and the middle ear cleft more commonly than solid cancers do.
Demography ; Diagnosis ; Ear Canal ; Ear, Middle ; Facial Nerve ; Facial Paralysis ; Head and Neck Neoplasms ; Hearing Loss ; Hematologic Neoplasms ; Humans ; Leukemia ; Lung Neoplasms ; Neoplasm Metastasis ; Retrospective Studies ; Temporal Bone

Middle ear adenoma is a very rare disease which is benign and originates from the middle ear mucosa. Patients of middle ear adenoma usually come to the clinic for unilateral hearing loss or tinnitus, but rarely for accompanied facial palsy. It is non-gender specific and occurs over a wide range of ages. The recurrence rate is known to be very low, but few authors argue that neuroendocrine adenoma should be considered as a low grade carcinoma due to some cases of recurrence. A 18 years-old male who had a left side facial palsy about 3 years ago but has currently improved as compared with the initial onset, visited our clinic for the left side hearing loss. Pure tone audiogram showed about 30 dB of conductive hearing loss and a pinkish polypoid mass involving the left tympanic membrane. We removed a tumor via transmastoid approach. The final diagnosis was middle ear adenoma with neuroendocrine differentiation. Neither signs of complication nor recurrence were observed after six months of the surgery.
Adenoma ; Diagnosis ; Ear, Middle ; Facial Paralysis ; Hearing Loss ; Hearing Loss, Conductive ; Hearing Loss, Unilateral ; Hearing ; Humans ; Male ; Mucous Membrane ; Rare Diseases ; Recurrence ; Tinnitus ; Tympanic Membrane

Ramsay Hunt syndrome is a type of acute herpes zoster, which occurs by reactivation of the varicella-zoster virus at the geniculate ganglion. Clinical presentation of Ramsay Hunt syndrome includes a vesicular rash on the ear (herpes zoster oticus) or in the oral mucosa accompanied by acute peripheral facial nerve paralysis. Other cranial nerves such as V, IX, XI, and XII are often involved. Additional variability of the clinical picture of Ramsay Hunt syndrome is produced by varying patterns of skin involvement explained by individual anastomoses between cranial and cervical nerves. Combination treatment containing anti-viral agents and steroids is recommended for the treatment of Ramsay Hunt syndrome. Additionally, early diagnosis of Ramsay Hunt syndrome is a crucial factor to improve damaged nerves in Ramsay Hunt syndrome, which initiates treatment as soon as possible.
Cranial Nerves ; Ear ; Early Diagnosis ; Exanthema ; Facial Nerve ; Facial Paralysis ; Geniculate Ganglion ; Herpes Zoster ; Herpes Zoster Oticus ; Herpesvirus 3, Human ; Mouth Mucosa ; Paralysis ; Skin ; Steroids

Although Bell's palsy is the most common cause of facial palsy in children, some cases have potentially fatal causes. We report a rare case of isolated facial palsy in a 4-year-old girl whose diagnosis was acute myeloid leukemia with extramedullary infiltration. The findings of laboratory investigations were nonspecific at presentation except that the delta neutrophil index was 34.5% (reference range, 0%–5%). To avoid hasty diagnosis of Bell's palsy in children with isolated facial palsy, vigilant differential diagnosis and workup are recommended.
Bell Palsy ; Child ; Child, Preschool* ; Diagnosis ; Diagnosis, Differential ; Facial Paralysis* ; Female* ; Humans ; Leukemia, Myeloid, Acute* ; Magnetic Resonance Imaging ; Neutrophils*

PURPOSE: In the present study, the clinical characteristics and prognosis of patients clinically diagnosed with classic Miller Fisher syndrome were evaluated. METHODS: We retrospectively investigated the clinical and laboratory findings as well as treatment outcomes using the medical records of patients diagnosed with Miller Fisher syndrome. Symptom triad including acute ophthalmoplegia, ataxia, and areflexia were evaluated. RESULTS: This study included 10 patients. Nine patients had antecedent infectious illness which took an average of 11 ± 9.7 days for onset of diplopia from antecedent infectious systemic illness. Seven patients showed bilateral paralytic strabismus. Specifically, 5 patients showed the involvement of vertical and horizontal extraocular muscles. Pupil impairment and blepharoptosis were observed in 4 patients, limb weakness in 3 patients, dysarthria in 3 patients and facial palsy in 1 patient. Two patients showed contrast enhancement of the abducens nerve on brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and 2 patients showed albumin-cell dissociation on cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) analysis. Eight patients had anti-GQ1b antibodies in their blood serum analysis. Six patients were treated with intravenous immunoglobulins and the other patients were observed with regular follow-ups. The duration of diplopia was 2.9 ± 1.2 months in the treatment group and 3.1 ± 1.7 months in the control group (p > 0.05). The duration of ataxia was 1 ± 0.4 months in the treatment group and 1 ± 0.9 months in the control group (p > 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: Miller Fisher syndrome should be considered in patients with antecedent infection; acute ophthalmoplegia, ataxia and areflexia as well as anti-GQ1b antibody can be helpful for diagnosis. Final outcomes in the treated group were not significantly different from the control group and all patients showed good final outcomes.
Abducens Nerve ; Antibodies ; Ataxia ; Blepharoptosis ; Brain ; Cerebrospinal Fluid ; Diagnosis ; Diplopia ; Dysarthria ; Extremities ; Facial Paralysis ; Follow-Up Studies ; Humans ; Immunoglobulins, Intravenous ; Magnetic Resonance Imaging ; Medical Records ; Miller Fisher Syndrome* ; Muscles ; Ophthalmoplegia ; Prognosis* ; Pupil ; Retrospective Studies ; Serum ; Strabismus