Objective: To study the etiology of ophthalmoplegia cases.
Methods: A retrospective case series study. We summarized and analyzed etiological diagnosis of 487 ophthalmoplegia patients from January 2005 to September 2010 in Beijing Tongren Hospital of Capital Medical University and Beijing Tongren Eye Center. Clinical data included the case history, clinical manifestations, and results of examinations of neurology, ophthalmology, endocrinology and iconography. The analysis of variance (ANOVA) and Chi-Square test were used in our study.
Results: Nineteen different kinds of causes were identified. In terms of age onset, microvascular ischemic (MVI) patients were the oldest (60.38 +/- 11.16) in all groups. It significantly distinguished from myasthenia gravis (MG) and local non-specific inflammation (F = 24.46, P = 0.000). From the view of ophthalmoplegia characters, bilateral asymmetry ophthalmoplegia was the character of MG. We also found that all MVI patients had lesions in unilateral single ocular movement nerve. Unilateral multiple nerves or muscles lesions were the main feature of local non-specific inflammation. In addition, from the view of concomitant symptoms, local aching was very frequent in local non-specific inflammation (all 60 cases) and MVI (44 cases) patients (Chi2 = 36.346, P = 0.000). The mild pupil changing could be found in about one half patients of the two diseases (Chi2 = 0.026, P = 0.875).
Conclusions: The causes of ophthalmoplegia are very complicate. MG, MVI and local non-specific inflammation are the most frequent causes. In more than half of patients, the lesions are located in neurological system, about one third located in neuromuscular junction and the least in the muscles.