Orbital Growth After Unilateral Enucleation in Childhood

Among the apparent truisms in ophthalmology, there is one, at least, which requires close scrutiny. This is the belief that orbital growth is checked following enucleation in childhood, resulting in more or less maldevelopment and facial asymmetry depending upon the age at which enucleation was performed.¹⁻³In an attempt to test this hypothesis, a follow-up study was carried out upon adults who had had one eye removed in early life. Historical Note In 1898, a Committee of the Ophthalmological Society of the United Kingdom reported that one of the disadvantages of simple excision of the eyeball was "faulty development of the orbit and face on the side from which the eye has been removed when the operation has been performed in early life."⁴Thomson, in 1901, reported the results of a study in which he had enucleated one eye of several 21-day-old rabbits.⁵Autopsy upon six of