EyeRounds Online Atlas of Ophthalmology

Contributor: William Charles Caccamise, Sr, MD, Retired Clinical Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology, University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry

*Dr. Caccamise has very generously shared his images of patients taken while operating during the "eye season" in rural India as well as those from his private practice during the 1960's and 1970's. Many of his images are significant for their historical perspective and for techniques and conditions seen in settings in undeveloped areas.

Category: Oculoplastics

Keratitis e lagophthalmos with lateral tarsorraphy

Keratitis e lagophthalmos is an exposure keratitis resulting from an inability to close the eyelids. In this case the inability was due to a facial paralysis. It is not easy to detect in this photo, but the patient did have a lateral tarsorraphy OD. Please note that the word "lagophthalmos" has an interesting etymological history. The word is unrelated to lag as in lid-lag. It is derived from the Greek lagos meaning hare and ophthalmos meaning eye. Supposedly, the hare sleeps with its eyes open.

The corneal disturbances due to lagophthalmos are evident in this photo. A lateral tarsorraphy is partially evident.

Ophthalmic Atlas Images by EyeRounds.org, The University of Iowa are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.