Table I.

Main characteristics of study sample (n = 289) according to the presence of a first BP episode or a recurrent BP.

	First BP episode	Recurrent BP	P-value
N	265	24	-
Gender (female:male)	113:152	10:14	1.00
Age, years	49.4 ± 18.1	57.2 ± 14.0	0.03
HB score	3.95 ± 0.65	3.83 ± 0.92	0.68
SB score	40.7 ± 21	40.4 ± 20.2	0.60
Presence of comorbidity	186	19	0.48
Hypertension	83	11	0.17
Diabetes	28	5	0.17
Autoimmunity disease	18	0	0.38
Infectious disease	5	2	0.11
Audio-vestibular abnormal	37	4	0.76
Herpes virus infection	108	12	0.39
Familial history of BP	27 (10%)	5 (20%)	0.16
Follow-up, days	60 ± 58	70 ± 59	0.34

Values are presented as means ± SD or N as appropriated. Significant values are in bold. BP: Bell palsy; HB: House-Brackmann.