The plastic surgeon and Graves disease.

Thyroid-associated ophthalmopathy is a disease caused by autoimmune processes that also affects the thyroid gland and the lower limbs; at orbital level, it involves the muscle and adipose tissue. When medical treatment fails to achieve appreciable results, surgery aims to decompress the orbital cavity. In recent years, the treatment has been considerably improved by the introduction of transpalpebral lipectomy, which has produced valid results especially in cases when extrinsic muscle hypertrophy is limited; if it is severe, however, lipectomy can be combined with expansion of the orbital cavity, thus enabling the latter to be restricted to one or two walls instead of three. Studying 52 patients who underwent orbital decompression involving lipectomy and/or orbital expansion, affecting a total of 96 orbits, enabled an assessment of the pros and cons of the single techniques in an attempt to identify a rational approach to this pathology. It emerged that lipectomy alone may suffice and obtain valid results in cases of mild-to-moderate proptosis (up to 24 mm) with limited extrinsic muscle hypertrophy, whereas orbital expansion--with or without lipectomy--is likely to be necessary in moderate-to-severe cases (proptosis greater than 24 mm). Additional procedures to correct the elevator and retractor muscles of the eyelids were almost always necessary.