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Previous Volume 352:416-418 January 27, 2005 Number 4 Next

	Since this article has no abstract, we have provided an extract of the first 100 words of the full text and any section headings.

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To the Editor: In his Clinical Practice article on Bell's palsy, Gilden (Sept. 23 issue)¹ recommends treatment of the patient in the vignette with oral prednisone. The Cochrane Collaboration² has pointed out that the statement of the American Academy of Neurology — that early treatment with corticosteroids is "probably effective"³ — is most likely invalid because their evidence synthesis (i.e., their summary of the best available evidence) included a trial with a high rate of loss to follow-up⁴ and a nonrandomized trial⁵ — trials that both had serious threats to validity.

Without these studies, the pooled results are no longer . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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