[Tolerance of orbital implants. Retrospective study on 14 years].

UNLABELLED

The authors report the results of enucleations performed from 1985 to 1998 and the different orbital implants used.

MATERIAL AND METHODS

All patients undergoing enucleation from 1985 to 1998 were studied.

RESULTS

68 men and 32 women had an enucleation. The main indication was tumoral diseases, principally choroidal melanomas and ciliary melanomas (respectively, 26 and 8). More rarely the indication was orbital metastasis or eyelid carcinoma. The follow indications were traumatisms and neovascular glaucomas. The orbital implants used were mainly Allen implants, silicone implants and hydroxyapatite implants. The main complication was the expulsion of the implant, which occurred in about 20% of the cases, for the most part in the group of silicone and tunnel implants patient. These expulsions were found less with hydroyxapatite implants. For the hydroxyapatite implants we also noticed the some conjunctival erosion. The expulsion of the implant occurred most often before 2 years.

CONCLUSION

The authors report on the survey of orbital implants used for 14 years. They noticed the high frequency of expulsions when they used tunnel or silicone implants and better results with hydroxyapatite implant.