Abstract
The author reports and discusses the ocular complications and management of lepromatous patients in National Leprosarium “Tohoku Shinsei-en”. Ages of 327 patients ranged from 38 to 93 (mean: 66.3). Three hundred and five patients out of these 327 (93%) had ocular complications such as cataract (50.8%), Iagophthalmos (41.3%), ectropion (35.7%), trichiasis (27.8%), corneal opacification (20.3%), posterior synechia of iris (20.0%), keratic precipitate (19.6%), phthisis bulbi (19.1%), corneal degeneration (17.1%), extreme miosis (13.1%), entropion (12.8%), aphakia(12.5%) and so on.
Fifty-one cataract operations were performed. In 69% of these cases postoperative visual acuities were better 3 years after surgery than after 3 months in patients with lagophthalmos and in 84% of the patients without lagophthalmos. It revealed that lagophthalmos did not affect the visual preservation after cataract surgery.
Lagophthalmos is one of the most serious ocular complications that attributes to the corneal opacification and leads to visual disturbance.
