Haemangioma of the Ciliary Body.

THE literature includes descriptions of over ten cases of haemangioma of the iris and four of haemangioma of the ciliary body. In reporting the first case of haemangioma of the iris examined histologically, Rodin (1929) mentioned nine others that had been published and stated that the diagnosis was obviously correct in only three of them. A similar view of the cases in the literature was held by Reese (1963) who reported two cases of haemangioma of the iris personally observed. One had an angioma in both the upper lid and the iris of the same eye. Angiomatous dilatation of the blood vessels of the iris has been reported in cases of Sturge-Weber's syndrome. Reese suspected that the majority of cases of haemangioma of the iris described in the literature were either granulomata or malignant melanomata; he also suggested that the iris nodule reported by Knapp (1928) might be a naevus and not an angioma. The first report of haemangioma in the ciliary body was that of Griffith (1892). Heine (1926) described two cases which he consid ered to be of different aetiology. The first occurred in a young patient who had congenital stenosis of the pulmonary artery and compensatory hyperglobulinaemia. Several racemose haemangiomata were established pathologically in this case. The other patient had interstitial keratitis, active inflammatory hyperaemia in the iris, and a small angioma of the giant capillary type (Riesenkapillarangioma) in the ciliary body. A case was reported by Daily (1931) in which the eye of a young child was enu-cleated for suspected malignant tumour, and a capillary haemangioma was later found in the ciliary body. The patient had had recurrent haemorrhages into the anterior chamber, and the tumour caused iridodialysis and penetrated into the anterior chamber. Haemangioma of the iris and the ciliary body must be regarded as relatively rare, and we therefore report a case which proved to be one of haemangioma of the ciliary body, but in which the blind eye was enucleated as it was impossible to rule out malignancy clinically. The ultrasonic examination performed for the first time in a case of this kind lends an added interest. Case Report The patient was a fisherman's daughter born in 1949, and according to her parents there was no history of eye disease in the family. The vision of the right eye had deteriorated in less than 2 years and showed divergent strabismus. An ophthalmologist was …