Background : The relative merit of operation in the treatment of Graves' ophthalmopathy as well as the extent of surgical resection is still a matter of debate. This work aimed at reporting the asessment of the im­pact of near-total thyroidectomy on the course of ophthalmopathy includ­ing exophthalmos.
Methods : A total of 20 patients, with thyrotoxic goiters suffering from mild to moderate exophthalmos were enrolled onto this prospective study. Preoperative evaluation of ophthal­mopathy was accomplished through the NOSPECS classification, MRI scanning for measuring the extraocu-iar muscle diameters and measure­ment of the exophthalmos using Her-tel's exophthalmometer. Six months
postoperatively, ophthalmopathy in­cluding exophthalmos was re-evaluated using the same parameters mentioned before.
Results : Clinical activity evalua­tion, exophthalmometry and extraocu-lar muscles measurement by MRI revealed that the majority of the cases experienced improvement of their ophthalmopathy (65%). This im­provement was statistically significant. In addition, no major postoperative complications were observed. Howev­er, the study, unlike a number of reported retrospective ones, failed to specify any statistically significant prognostic factors affecting the course of ophthalmopathy possibly due to the limited number of cases in gener­al. In addition, all of the cases were of relatively young age