PURPOSE To evaluate tear film quality by rose bengal staining and its stability by breakup time, relating with palpebral fissure height and exophthalmos in patients with Graves' ophthalmopathy. METHODS We studied 54 eyes of 27 patients with Graves' ophthalmopathy, either in the inflammatory or in the chronic phase of the disease. The evaluation consisted of tear film qualitative analysis by r...

Graves' disease is a most common cause of hyperthyroidism. It is an autoimmune disease, and autoimmune process induces an inflammatory reaction, and reactive oxygen species (ROSs) are among its products. When balance between oxidants and antioxidants is disturbed, in favour of the oxidants it is termed "oxidative stress" (OS). Increased OS characterizes Graves' disease. It seems that the level ...

OBJECTIVE To compare ultrasonography (US) to magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and the clinical activity score (CAS) in Graves' ophthalmopathy. SUBJECTS AND METHODS Nineteen patients underwent extraocular muscle thickness measurements by US and MRI, reflectivity by US and signal-intensity ratio by MRI. There were also twelve US control subjects. RESULTS US median thicknesses were greater tha...

BACKGROUND The study reports our 8-year experience in the surgical treatment of restrictive myopathy resulting from dysthyroid ophthalmopathy. We tried to determine the factors that contributed to favorable surgical outcomes. METHODS The charts of patients who had surgical treatment for strabismus related to dysthyroid ophthalmopathy at Chang Gung Memorial Hospital between January 1995 and De...

Exophthalmos is typically associated with Graves' ophthalmopathy. Although originally described by Harvey Cushing, exophthalmos is an underappreciated sign of Cushing's syndrome. We present a case of a 38-year-old female who presented with severe bilateral proptosis and was subsequently diagnosed with Cushings disease. We discuss the possible mechanisms causing exophthalmos in patients with eit...

A 27 year old woman with Graves' disease developed progressive ophthalmopathy and was noted to have abnormal visual evoked responses (VER). She was treated with high dose prednisone with clinical improvement and return of the visual evoked responses to normal. On withdrawal of steroids symptoms recurred and VER again were abnormal. Orbital irradiation was given with improvement in the ophthalmo...

Cigarette smoking is the most important risk factor for the development or deterioration of Graves' ophthalmopathy. Smoke-induced increased generation of reactive oxygen species may be involved. However, it remains to be clarified how orbital fibroblasts are affected by cigarette smoking. Our study demonstrated that Graves' orbital fibroblasts have exaggerated response to cigarette smoke extrac...

OBJECTIVE Approximately 35% of patients with Graves' ophthalmopathy do not respond to immunosuppressive treatment. A possible explanation for this finding is that only patients with active ophthalmopathy respond to immunosuppressive treatment, whereas patients with fibrotic end stage disease do not. To distinguish between these two groups and to predict the outcome of immunosuppressive treatmen...

Background: Killer cell immunoglobulin-like receptors (KIR) are expressed on NK cells and a subset of T cells. The variable KIR receptors along with their ligands, HLA class I, influence risk for autoimmune and malignant diseases. Objective: To investigate the KIR gene profiles in relation to susceptibility to Graves’ disease in patients with ophthalmopathy. Methods: KIR genes profiles were ana...