Jeong Joohee, Almansoori Akram Abdo, Park Hyun-Soo, Byun Soo-Hwan, Min Seung-Ki, Choung Han-Wool, Park Joo Yong, Choi Sung Weon, Kim Bongju, Kim Soung-Min, Lee Jong-Ho
2Oral Oncology Clinic, Research Institute and Hospital, National Cancer Center, Goyang, South Korea.
1Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, School of Dentistry, Seoul National University, 275-1 Yeongeon-dong, Jongro-gu, Seoul, 110-749 South Korea.
Maxillofac Plast Reconstr Surg. 2018 Sep 7;40(1):22. doi: 10.1186/s40902-018-0163-3. eCollection 2018 Dec.
Cross-facial nerve graft is considered the treatment of choice for facial reanimation in patients with unilateral facial palsy caused by central facial nerve damage. In most cases, a traditional parotidectomy skin incision is used to locate the buccal and zygomatic branches of the facial nerve.
In this study, cross-facial nerve graft with the sural nerve was planned for three patients with facial palsy through an intraoral approach.
An incision was made on the buccal cheek mucosa, and the dissection was performed to locate the buccal branch of the facial nerve. The parotid papillae and parotid duct were used as anatomic landmarks to locate the buccal branch.
The intraoral approach is more advantageous than the conventional extraoral approach because of clear anatomic marker (parotid papilla), invisible postoperative scar, reduced tissue damage from dissection, and reduced operating time.