Koh KS, Plastic Surgery, Asan Medical Center, University of Ulsan, 388-1 Pungnap-dong, Songpa-gu, Seoul, South Korea and Kim SY, Otolarygology Surgery, Asan Medical Center, University of Ulsan, 388-1 Pungnap-dong, Songpa-gu, Seoul, South Korea.
Hypoglossal-facial crossover is the most popular method of reconstructing the facial palsy resulting from proximal facial nerve injury near the brainstem. Conventional hypoglossal-facial crossover involves performing a partial hypoglossal nerve section or incision and an interpositional nerve graft to bridge the gap between the two nerves, which sometimes results in hemiglossal atrophy and its sequelae. To solve these problems, we attempted to perform 'pure end-to-side anastomosis' between the hypoglossal and facial nerves in seven patients with facial palsy.Facial reanimation was achieved after 8 months.The longest followup period is 5 years. With time the animation of the patients has been improved further. Despite the small number of cases, we believe that the technique of hypoglossal-facial crossover with 'pure end-to-side anastomosis' and mobilization of the intratemporal facial nerve can decrease donor nerve morbidity in facial nerve rehabilitation.