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Case 2 - Indications for Surgery

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The next two slides are from a review article from the

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plastics people and facial reconstruction people with

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regard to the indications for acute

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surgery for orbital fractures.

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And you can see them listed here, enophthalmos, the

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eye being collapsed inward greater than 2 mm.

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So we're going to measure that.

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Hypoglobus, the eye pointing downward

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displaced globe. Diplopia, usually implying entrapment.

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Increased orbital volume by virtue of the level of the

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retrobulbar hematoma. Limited mobility and compressive

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optic neuropathy. Again, some of these are treated,

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the surgery is treating the fracture itself.

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Some of them are just treating the increased

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ocular pressure in the orbit, which can be

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treated with the lateral canthotomy.

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One of the issues is when do you

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repair these orbital fractures?

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And in most situations, it's rarely

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considered an emergent.

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You know the plastic surgeon has to come in that night or the

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oral or maxillofacial surgeon has to come in that night.

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These are usually treated next

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day for the emergent ones.

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And some of them, it's better to actually wait a couple

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of weeks. Why? Because of the edema.

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You don't want to be operating with all this

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surrounding hematoma and edema in the muscles

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so they actually wait. If you wait,

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you have run the risk of having some possibility of

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adhesions created or contrary to that would

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be the benefit of the decreased swelling.

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Again,

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operating when there's acute swelling is not as

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successful as when things have kind of calmed down

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a little bit. So some people would say, well,

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let's wait two to three weeks and we see this with

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some of the orbital fracture reconstructions, that

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it's two to three weeks later, sometimes acutely.

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Unless, of course,

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you have optic neuropathy in which case because

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the optic nerve is potentially in danger,

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they'll operate acutely.

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There is this oculocardiac reflex and

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it's mediated by the vagus nerve.

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And that is that when you push in on the globe and you

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have bradycardia, that is one of the clinical findings

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that suggest that the patient should be operated

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acutely because of potential cardiac problems

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associated with the ocular injury.

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Children tend to get operated earlier because

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they have a higher risk of entrapment and because

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of this risk of the inferior rectus and medial rectus

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muscle being entrapped in the fractures.

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And if you have a penetrating injury or an

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open globe, they're going to operate

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early and / or give antibiotics early.

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This is a patient who has had a reconstruction

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of the medial orbital wall and the orbital floor.

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He knows that there's no blood products

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and there's no edema

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on these bone windows, at least that we can see.

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This is because the fractures have been repaired

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a week or two after the actual injury, and that's not

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unusual if the only issue is the reconstruction

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of the fractures.

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When you look at these patients

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on the post op scan,

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you want to look for implant mal positioning on the

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postoperative CT or abnormal angulation or poking into

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an extraocular muscle as something that you would

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call the clinician about the surgeon band and say, "Hey,

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this medial band of the reconstruction is too far

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medially located and is abutting on the medial

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rectus muscle. In this case, this looks just fine.

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And this is nice

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orientation and positioning of the medial

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as well as the orbital floor implant.

Report

Faculty

David M Yousem, MD, MBA

Professor of Radiology, Vice Chairman and Associate Dean

Johns Hopkins University

Tags

Neuroradiology

Head and Neck

Emergency

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