AIMS To determine quality of life and adequacy of education and counselling in Australian patients with Graves' ophthalmopathy during the course of their illness. METHODS A cross sectional study was conducted at the orbital and endocrinology clinics of Royal Brisbane Hospital on 162 consecutive patients with Graves' ophthalmopathy who were managed between the 1992 and 2000. The Graves' ophtha...

Aims: To determine quality of life and adequacy of education and counselling in Australian patients with Graves’ ophthalmopathy during the course of their illness. Methods: A cross sectional study was conducted at the orbital and endocrinology clinics of Royal Brisbane Hospital on 162 consecutive patients with Graves’ ophthalmopathy who were managed between the 1992 and 2000. The Graves’ ophtha...

BACKGROUND Ophthalmopathy is a common manifestation of Graves' disease (GD) occurring in up to 50% of patients. Mild eye signs are also common in patients with Hashimoto's thyroiditis. Whilst a genetic predisposition to GD has been demonstrated this is not the case for the ophthalmopathy which often runs a separate course. OBJECTIVE We determined the prevalences of eye and eyelid signs and po...

PURPOSE To assess the self-esteem of Graves' ophthalmopathy patients in the inactive phase. METHODS Thirty euthyroid patients were evaluated in the inactive phase of disease with age ranging from 26 to 65 years, average of 43 +/- 11,0 years, called study group and 39 individuals without Graves' ophthalmopathy with age ranging from 18 to 67 years, average of 41 +/- 13,4 years, selected from th...

Graves' ophthalmopathy is an debilitating disease impairing the quality of life of affected individuals. Despite recent progress in the understanding of its pathogenesis, treatment is often not satisfactory. In mild cases, local therapeutic measures (artificial tears and ointments, sunglasses, nocturnal taping of the eyes, prisms) can control symptoms and signs. In severe forms of the disease (...

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...

The clinical manifestations of carotid cavernous fistula, an abnormal arteriovenous connection between the cavernous sinus and the carotid artery, can closely mimic the cardinal signs of Graves' ophthalmopathy, an inflammatory disorder of the orbit usually associated with autoimmune thyroid disease. Therefore, carotid cavernous fistulas are generally considered in the differential diagnosis of ...

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...