Measurements of Orbital Protrusion From Childhood to Young Adulthood

Background: Ocular protrusion is usually measured as the deepestpart of the lateral orbital rim to the apex of the cornea. Severalstudies have been carried out to propose normative data for ocularprotrusion according to different age ranges. The protrusion of theeyeball seemed to increase during childhood and adolescence andbecome stable after the late teens during adulthood. Relationshipsof ocular protrusion with age are still not completely clarified. Thepurpose of the current retrospective study was to investigate ocularprotrusion on lateral x-rays at different growth stages.Methods: Ninety-five patients were retrospectively selected anddivided into 5 different groups according to ages. Subjects were ofboth sexes with an age range from 5 to 20 years (mean 12.3 years).Thecephalometricanalysisproposedinthecurrentstudyallowedtosuccessfully evaluate sagittal relationships of the orbital-globe andthe orbital-cavity ingrowing patients. Allother sagittal andverticalmeasurementsweresuccessfullycomputedbyonetrainedoperator.Results: Analysis of variance results with post hoc correctionsshowed for the orbital measurements indicating a significantincrease of the orbital protrusion from childhood to pubertal stage.Conclusions: Ocular protrusion measurements showed significantincrease from childhood (5–8 years) to teen age (13–15 years) andremainedstableafterthepubertalgrowthspurt(17–20years)intheexamined sample of patients.Key Words: Orbital growth, orbital-globe protrusion,development, aging(J Craniofac Surg 2015;26: 760–763)