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Hemifacial spasm secondary to vascular loop compression: a rare case report

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Abstract

Hemifacial spasm (HFS) is characterised by brief, persistent, involuntary paroxysmal contractions of the facial muscles innervated by the facial nerve. Broadly its aetiology is portrayed as primary and secondary. Primary HFS is a result of vascular compression of the ipsilateral facial nerve at its root exit zone, and secondary HFS can occur after any injury to the facial nerve from the internal auditory canal to the stylomastoid foramen, which may be a result of a cerebellopontine angle tumour, schwannoma, fusiform aneurysm, or demyelinating lesion such as multiple sclerosis. We report a rare case of HFS in a 40-year-old female patient, who presented with a 4-year history of twitching of the left eye and deviation of the mouth towards the left side. An MRI of the brain revealed a vascular anomaly at the root exit zone of the left facial nerve. The present report aims to highlight MRI as a single, non-invasive diagnostic investigation to confirm the diagnosis of HFS.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Oral Medicine and Radiology, SDM College of Dental Sciences and Hospital, Dharwad, Karnataka, 580009, India

    Pratibha S. Sharma, Atul P. Sattur, Kirty R. Nandimath, Kruthika S. Guttal & Krishna Burde

  2. Department of Radiodiagnosis, SDM College of Medical Sciences and Hospital, Dharwad, Karnataka, 580009, India

    Preetam B. Patil

Authors
  1. Pratibha S. Sharma
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  2. Atul P. Sattur
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  3. Preetam B. Patil
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  4. Kirty R. Nandimath
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  5. Kruthika S. Guttal
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  6. Krishna Burde
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Pratibha S. Sharma.

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Conflict of interest

Pratibha S. Sharma, Atul P. Sattur, Preetam B. Patil, Kirty R. Nandimath, Kruthika S. Guttal and Krishna Burde declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical standards

All procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional and national) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2008(5). Informed consent was obtained from all patients for being included in the study.

Research involving human participants and/or animals

This article does not contain any studies with animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

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Sharma, P.S., Sattur, A.P., Patil, P.B. et al. Hemifacial spasm secondary to vascular loop compression: a rare case report. Oral Radiol 34, 273–276 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11282-017-0296-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11282-017-0296-6

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