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Surgery for Hemifacial Spasm

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Monitoring the Nervous System for Anesthesiologists and Other Health Care Professionals

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Abstract

Hemifacial spasm (HFS) is characterized by unilateral spasms of the facial musculature beginning with the orbicularis oculi muscle and later spreading to other muscles of facial expression. While the disease is not life-threatening, it can profoundly reduce quality of life (Heuser et al., Eur J Neurol 14:335–340, 2007; Samii et al., Neurosurgery 50:712–718, 2002; Sekula et al., Muscle Nerve 48:770–776, 2013). One proposed etiology of disease is vascular compression of the centrally myelinated portion of the facial nerve. In this respect, microvascular decompression (MVD) is the only treatment of HFS that directly addresses etiology of the disease and achieves success in nearly 90 % of initial operations (Miller and Miller, Br J Neurosurg 26:438–444, 2012). The role of electrophysiology and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in these patients has become an indispensable tool in identifying surgical candidates.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Asterisk indicates key references.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Neurological Surgery, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, 200 Lothrop Street, Suite B400, Pittsburgh, PA, 15213, USA

    Raymond F. Sekula Jr. M.D., M.B.A., F.A.C.S., Jeffrey R. Balzer Ph.D. & Jesse D. Lawrence B.S.

  2. Division of Neuroanesthesia, Department of Anesthesiology, Tufts Medical Center, 800 Washington Street, Boston, MA, 02111, USA

    Penny P. Liu M.D.

Authors
  1. Raymond F. Sekula Jr. M.D., M.B.A., F.A.C.S.
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  2. Jeffrey R. Balzer Ph.D.
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  3. Jesse D. Lawrence B.S.
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  4. Penny P. Liu M.D.
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Raymond F. Sekula Jr. M.D., M.B.A., F.A.C.S. .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Departments of Anesthesiology, Neurological Surgery and Neurology, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois, USA

    Antoun Koht

  2. Department of Anesthesiology, University of Colorado School of Medicine, Aurora, Colorado, USA

    Tod B. Sloan

  3. Department of Anesthesiology, Rush University Medical Center, Chicago, Illinois, USA

    J. Richard Toleikis

Electronic Supplementary Material

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Setup for microvascular decompression including patient positioning, site marking, and insertion of earpiece for utilization of auditory brainstem-evoked potentials (MOV 223,316 kb)

Surgeon performing microvascular decompression of the associated segment (AS) of the facial nerve by manipulating the posterior inferior cerebellar artery (PICA) (MP4 37,554 kb)

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Sekula, R.F., Balzer, J.R., Lawrence, J.D., Liu, P.P. (2017). Surgery for Hemifacial Spasm. In: Koht, A., Sloan, T., Toleikis, J. (eds) Monitoring the Nervous System for Anesthesiologists and Other Health Care Professionals. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-46542-5_26

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-46542-5_26

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