Bell's palsy is the appellation commonly used to describe an acute peripheral facial palsy of unknown cause. However, the terms "Bell's palsy" and "idiopathic facial paralysis" may no longer be considered synonymous. A peripheral facial palsy is a clinical syndrome of many causes, and herpes simplex virus activation is the likely cause of Bell's palsy in most cases. Nevertheless, most patients with peripheral facial palsy are labelled as having Bell's palsy because there is no established or widely available method of confirming herpes simplex virus as the mechanism in clinical practice.
A herpes simplex-mediated viral inflammatory/immune mechanism was the subject of controversy for years but was suspected based upon serological evidence. Polymerase chain reaction DNA testing supports the notion of axonal spread and multiplication of a reactivated neurotropic virus leading to inflammation, demyelination, and palsy. Herpes simplex virus activation has become widely accepted as the likely cause of Bell's palsy in most cases, though the evidence is not entirely conclusive. In one study, HSV-1 genomes were identified in facial nerve endoneurial fluid and auricular muscle in 11 of 14 patients undergoing decompression surgery for Bell's palsy but in no controls .
Herpes zoster is probably the second most common viral infection associated with facial palsy. In a large series of 1701 cases of Bell's palsy, 116 had herpes zoster. Other infectious causes of acute peripheral facial palsy include cytomegalovirus, Epstein-Barr virus, adenovirus, rubella virus, mumps, influenza B, and coxsackievirus . Two cases due to Rickettsial infection have also been reported, and ehrlichiosis can present as facial diplegia .
An inactivated intranasal influenza vaccine that was introduced and since withdrawn from the market in Switzerland was significantly associated with Bell's palsy in a case-control study.The peak occurrence of Bell's palsy was between 31 and 60 days after intranasal vaccination, suggesting that the palsy was not due to a direct toxic response but rather an induced immune response, such as reactivation of latent herpes simplex or varicella-zoster virus.
Histopathology of the facial nerve in patients with Bell's palsy is consistent with an inflammatory and possibly infectious cause, and the appearance is similar to that found with herpes zoster infection, further supporting an infectious hypothesis. Specifically, the facial nerve has a thickened, edematous perineurium with a diffuse infiltrate of small, round, inflammatory cells between nerve bundles and around intraneural blood vessels. Myelin sheaths undergo degeneration. These changes are seen throughout the bony course of the facial nerve, although nerve damage is maximal in the labyrinthine part of the facial canal where edema causes compression and the tenuous blood supply adds to the damage.
Alternate postulated mechanisms of Bell's palsy include a genetic predisposition in some cases and ischemia of the facial nerve. Diabetes is a risk factor for microangiopathy, which may lead Bell's palsy via to microcirculatory failure of the vasa nervosum . A retrospective study found that 190 (74 percent) of 257 patients with Bell's palsy first noticed facial weakness in the morning, suggesting that actual development of facial palsy occurred during sleep the authors speculated that nocturnal onset suggested an ischemic mechanism.
The increased risk of Bell’s palsy associated with pregnancy, which is most marked in the third trimester and the first postpartum week, may be caused by pregnancy-related fluid retention leading to compression of the nerve or perineural edema. Other potential etiologic factors include hypercoagulability causing thrombosis of the vasa nervosum and relative immunosuppression in pregnancy. Several studies have found an association of Bell’s palsy with preeclampsia, again suggesting extracellular edema as the mechanism.