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Darkness causes eyelid retraction in Graves’ disease and healthy patients

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Sudden darkness provoked an upper eyelid retraction in both healthy control patients and in patients with Graves’ upper eyelid retraction, according to a study.

Ligia Cristina Viana Neves, MD, and Augusto V. Antonio, MD, PhD, studied the phenomenon in one eye each of 211 control patients and in 78 eyes of 45 patients with Graves’ upper eyelid retraction. Twenty -one of the patients with Graves’ upper eyelid retraction (39 eyes) used guanethidine drops for 15 days. Palpebral fissure images of subjects were acquired in photopic conditions and in darkness, the researchers said.

All subjects exhibited upper eyelid retraction when exposed to sudden darkness. Children had greater increments in the mid-pupil eyelid distance than others. Guanethidine drops did not prevent the eyelid reflex in the Graves’ patients.

The study is published in the March issue of Ophthalmic Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery.