The salvage treatment for facial nerve palsy using the growth factor

2021 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 17K16888
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Otorhinolaryngology
• Research Institution: Yamagata University
• Principal Investigator: Furukawa Takatoshi 山形大学, 医学部, 非常勤講師 (80466630)
• Project Period (FY): 2017-04-01 – 2022-03-31
• Keywords: 顔面神経麻痺 / 内視鏡手術 / 内視鏡下耳科手術 / 神経栄養因子

Outline of Final Research Achievements

From August 2015, we started a new endoscopic regenerative procedure using bFGF in cases of severe facial nerve palsy. The results were reported at the Japanese Facial Nerve Society Panel Discussion (2018), the Japanese Facial Nerve Society Symposium (2019), and the 3rd world congress on endoscopic ear surgery (2019). The number of cases has now increased to about 50, and improvement to patients of severe Bell's palsy was confirmed, and the results were reported at the symposium of the International Facial Symposium in April 2022.
In basic experiments, we found that administration of IGF-1 significantly improved the healing rate for a model of facial nerve paralysis and reported the results in a paper (J Physiol Sci, 2020).

Free Research Field

耳科学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

顔面神経麻痺が高度に進行すると保存的治療の治癒率が低くなり、麻痺後遺症に苦しむ患者の数が少なくない現状にある。高度顔面神経麻痺例にbFGFを使用した内視鏡下再生術を新たに開発し、その有効性を確認した。また、基礎実験では、IGF-1の顔面神経麻痺モデルに対する有効性を確認できた。
これらの成果から、治療成績が頭打ちとなっている顔面神経麻痺治療の現状に対し、breakthroughとなる再生治療が提案できるものと期待され、その臨床的・社会的意義は大きいと思われる。