Herpes virus reactivation and serum tumor necrosis factor-alpha levels in patients with acute peripheral facial palsy.
Recent studies have shown that tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha) plays an important regulatory role in several inflammatory and infectious diseases. In the present study, we evaluated serum TNF-alpha levels of patients with acute peripheral facial palsy using an ELISA method. We examined sera from each group (n = 25 per group) of patients with herpes simplex virus type 1 reactivation (HSV-1). varicella-zoster virus (VZV) reactivation, and with no HSV or VZV reactivation. We also tested the sera of 25 normal controls. No significant difference was found between the serum TNF-alpha levels in facial palsy and controls. No correlation was found between serum TNF-alpha levels in cases with HSV-1 or VZV reactivation and with no HSV-1 or VZV reactivation. These results indicate that serum TNF-alpha levels are not affected by HSV-1 or VZV reactivation in patients with facial palsy.
Ohtani
F
F
Department of Otolaryngology, Hokkaido University School of Medicine, Sapporo, Japan. fohtani@med.hokudai.ac.jp
Furuta
Y
Y
Fukuda
S
S
Inuyama
Y
Y
D000208:Acute Disease; D005158:Facial Paralysis / Q000097:blood* / Q000821:virology*; D006801:Humans; D018139:Simplexvirus / Q000254:growth & development*; D014409:Tumor Necrosis Factor-alpha / Q000032:analysis*; D014775:Virus Activation
D014409:Tumor Necrosis Factor-alpha