The Origin of Facial Palsy in Multiple Sclerosis.
Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is an autoimmune neurodegenerative disease that affects several people especially in North America and Canada. In 2013, 33 individuals over 100,000 were
affected from MS; the estimated increase for 5 years of observation ranged from an average of 4.7 per 100,000 in high-income countries to just 0.04 per 100,000 in the low-income countries.
Women are more affected than men (2.3-3.5:1), but in men, the disease is usually more aggressive and has a worse prognosis than in women.
MS is a demyelinating disorder in which the immune system attacks the neural structures in the central nervous system; this mechanism is determined by a particular class of cells Microglia- that have been identified as responsible of the degenerative process.
These cells, that belong to the macrophage family, have the ability to move and they can easily migrate in different part of CNS4 and due to their two different phenotypes, an aggressive one, called M1, that induce neurodegeneration and, a protective phenotype (M2) that has neuroprotective ability they may be
induce demyelination and regeneration in different phases of MS as for example, in the relapsing and remitting disease.
In the active (relapsing) stage of MS, microglia M1 induces demyelination in the area of CNS where they currently are located. If the area interested is a motor one, the patient manifests movement disorders as stiffness or motor fatigue, in case of an attack in a sensory area the sensorial perception will be the affected one.
Authors report that around 7% of patients affected by MS experienced one episode of FP at least once in their life, but some controversies are still open about the origin of this symptom.
Otolaryngol Open J. 2018; 4(1): e1-e4. doi: 10.17140/OTLOJ-4-e006