Facial pain in patients with hemifacial spasm: A prospective cohort study

Clicks: 2
ID: 328307
2026
Free PDF
Article Quality & Performance Metrics
Overall Quality
Not rated
Combines reader engagement with the AI quality analysis. This article has not been analysed, so there is no overall score — reader engagement is measured and shown alongside.
AI Quality Assessment
Not analyzed
Readership in this journal
Emerging

Ranked #59 of 59 articles by views in regional anesthesia and pain medicine

Most read Least read

Bar heights use a square-root scale.

Mint this article as an NFT
Not yet minted

Create a permanent, verifiable on-chain record of this article on the Scimatic Network. The NFT is held in your Journament account, and you can withdraw it to your own wallet at any time.

5 SUSD one-off · no wallet required
Sign in to mint
Abstract
OBJECTIVE: To determine the prevalence and clinical characteristics of facial pain in patients with primary hemifacial spasm (HFS), identify factors associated with its occurrence, and evaluate its longitudinal course following botulinum toxin type A (BoNT-A) treatment. DESIGN: Prospective cohort study with 4 months of follow-up. SETTING: Tertiary public referral center. SUBJECTS: Eighty-seven adults with primary HFS receiving BoNT-A treatment. Median age was 66 years, 71.3% were women, and median disease duration was 13 years (IQR 8-20). METHODS: Participants underwent standardized assessment using a semi-structured questionnaire, Visual Analog Scale, McGill Pain Questionnaire, facial pain diary, Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, and Hemifacial Spasm Grading Questionnaire. Clinical characteristics and factors associated with facial pain were analyzed, and pain outcomes were assessed longitudinally following BoNT-A treatment. RESULTS: Facial pain was present in 40.2% of patients, predominantly involving the periorbital region (77.1%) and occurring ipsilateral to the spasm (85.7%). Median pain frequency was 5 days/month (IQR 3-15), intensity 6/10 (IQR 5-8), and duration 5 hours (IQR 1-20). In multivariable analysis, facial pain was independently associated with female sex (OR 3.47, 95% CI 1.00-11.97; p = 0.049) and greater subjective disease burden, measured by the HFS Global Subjective score (OR 1.01, 95% CI 1.00-1.03; p = 0.034), but not with objective motor severity. Although 88.2% of patients reported subjective improvement after BoNT-A, objective pain measures remained unchanged during follow-up. CONCLUSIONS: Facial pain is a frequent non-motor manifestation of HFS, affecting approximately 40% of patients. Its association with greater subjective disease burden, but not objective motor severity, suggests that pain represents a clinically relevant dimension of HFS not captured by motor assessment alone. Routine assessment of facial pain should therefore be incorporated into the comprehensive clinical evaluation of patients with HFS.
Reference Key
openalex_W7212117813 Use this key to autocite in the manuscript while using SciMatic Manuscript Manager or Thesis Manager
Authors Míriam Carvalho Soares, Mariana de Almeida Cruz Silva, Clélia Maria Ribeiro Franco, Pedro Augusto Sampaio Rocha-Filho
Journal regional anesthesia and pain medicine
Year 2026
DOI
10.1093/pm/pnag119
URL
https://doi.org/10.1093/pm/pnag119
Keywords Keywords not found

Citations

No citations found. To add a citation, contact the admin at info@scimatic.org

Comments

No comments yet. Be the first to comment on this article.