Discrete carcinomatous metastases in the extraocular muscles.

The orbit is a rare site for metastatic carcinoma (Duke-Elder, I952) and, although such orbital deposits may commonly involve muscle secondarily, discrete metastatic tumours in the extraocular muscles are extremely rare, as in muscle generally (Willis, I952, I953). A search of the literature has revealed four previous cases: two from carcinoma of the breast (Wintersteiner, I899; Bedford and Daniel, i960), one from carcinoma of the lung (Horner, I864), and one from malignant melanoma of the skin (Adelstein and Schmidt, I 968). This paper reports two further cases of extraocular muscle metastases from primary carcinoma of the breast, and outlines some of the diagnostic difficulties which arose.