[Facial hemiatrophy (Parry-Romberg syndrome)]

Abstract

Three cases of a rare and little studied disease which is characterized by progressive atrophy of the tissues of one half of the face. The muscular layer gets injured to a less extent. Dysembryogenesis underlies the disease while the hypothalamic formations are primarily damaged. The animal nervous system does not experience gross changes. The cases described may be referred to the idiopathic form of the syndrome. In one of the cases, the process progressed to the transition to the hand and body, in the other two ones, the process was combined with vegetovascular dystonia. All the patients were examined for the status of the vegetative nervous system according to the evoked cutaneous sympathetic potentials, the time of the pupillary cycle and the cardiovascular tests. The data obtained failed to reveal any lesions of the peripheral vegetative nervous system, which is likely to point to the interest of the suprasegmental vegetative structures.