Ultrasonic measurement of ocular rectus muscle thickness in patients with Graves’ ophthalmopathy

Abstract

The aim of this study was to evaluate changes in extraocular muscle thickness and to assess its correlation with the degree of proptosis in patients with Graves’ ophthalmopathy (GO). Material and methods. A total of 242 patients (207 females and 35 males) with Graves’ ophthalmopathy were enrolled into the study (GO group). Their mean age was 53.83±14.49 years. In addition, we examined an age-matched (53.51±12.79 years) control group of 40 healthy persons. All the participants underwent ophthalmological examination, including eye protrusion measurement and ultrasonographic evaluation of extraocular muscles thickness. Results. The mean exophthalmos in the GO and control groups was 17.84±2.79 mm and 16.0±1.58 mm, respectively. The enlargement of inferior rectus muscle was recorded in 92.1% of patients, lateral rectus muscle in 81.2%, and medial rectus muscle in 50.8% (P<0.001). A significant correlation between exophthalmos and muscle thickness sum was found in the GO group (Spearman correlation coefficient, 0.515; P<0.0001). Conclusions. Graves’ ophthalmopathy is more frequent in medium-aged women than men. A significant enlargement of inferior, lateral, and medial straight muscles was noticed in the GO group. With increasing proptosis, the sum of the muscle thickness was increasing, and exophthalmos moderately correlated with muscle thickness sum.

Assessment of Medial and Inferior Extraocular Muscle Thickness by Ultrasonography in Juvenile Patients with Graves’ Disease

“…In Graves' ophthalmopathy, the inflammatory cells occur in the orbital tissues and in the surrounding extraocular muscles (Tachibana et al, 2010;Dayan et Dayan, 2007). The present study data are similar to Murakami Y et al (2001), Petrović M J et al (2012) and our studies (Imbrasiene et al, 2010). Some studies showed that the enlarged extraocular muscles could be detected by A-scan or Bscan ultrasonography or by computerized tomography and magnetic resonance imaging, as the A-scan high amplitude and signal location accurately reflect the internal structure changes of the muscles.…”

Establishment of magnetic resonance imaging 3D reconstruction technology of orbital soft tissue and its preliminary application in patients with thyroid‐associated ophthalmopathy

“…To assess patients at different stages, the TAO group comprised patients with varying disease severity ranging from mild to severe and with different levels of disease activity; thus, the individual differences would have also resulted in variable enlargement of the extraocular muscle. Previous studieshave suggested that the inferior and the medial rectus were the most frequently affected, and that the muscle belly was more affected than the other parts. Our results demonstrate that extraocular muscle signals show greater variation than that of fat tissue, and that muscle tissue recognition, both artificially and using software, is comparatively difficult.…”

Bupivacaine and botulinum toxin to treat comitant strabismus

“…These findings could be explained due to the intrinsic variability of the ultrasonographic method for determining muscle thickness. When compared with previous normal values for muscle thick ness in patients without strabismus, measured by a similar method (10 MHz ultrasound, Mentor TM Advent Ultrasonic diagnostic ima ging system), the present series presented a higher average of thick ness both for medial rectus (3.9 mm vs 3.5 mm) and for lateral rectus before injection (3.6 mm vs. 3 mm) (18) . This finding could be explained by a muscular contracture and/or by the abnormal position of the eye due to comitant strabismus.…”