Evaluation of congenital Brown's syndrome with magnetic resonance imaging.

The magnetic resonance (MR) findings in congenital Brown's syndrome were investigated. Sixteen involved eyes of 12 patients were compared with 20 eyes of 10 controls. An enlargement of the tendon-trochlea complex was observed in congenital Brown's syndrome. In addition, the appearance of the tendon-trochlea complex was irregular in shape and of intermediate signal intensity. The MR appearances in patients with a satisfactory or poor response to surgery did not show any significant differences from each other or from those in patients who had not undergone surgery. This was also the case for the patient with spontaneous improvement. The MR examination in congenital Brown's syndrome suggested that the abnormality was located at the tendon-trochlea complex but clinically it does not give a clue about the outcome of the disease.