Some considerations of meibomian disease

ABSTRACT

The authors discuss clinical aspects of various afflictions of the meibomian gland. With the help of excellent color photographs, they illustrate aberrant meibomian eyelash in a 56-year-old woman, a rare meibomian cyst in a 2-year-old boy, acute meibomianitis [or meibomitis] discharging its abscess through the normal opening of the gland in a 23-year-old man, a huge chalazion of the lower lid in a 15-year-old girl, a meibomian granuloma pyogenicum in a 31-year-old man, and a histopathologically proven meibomian [sebaceous] carcinoma in a 41-year-old man. The discussion includes comments on pathogenesis and therapy of each disorder, with special reference to argon laser treatment of aberrant meibomian lashes, direct corticosteroid [triamcinolone acetonide, 5 mg/mL suspension] injections [up to a maximum of 0.2 mL] into chalazion, and early local excision of the sebaceous carcinoma. No local recurrence or distant mestatases appeared in the 10-year foliowup after a total local excision of the sebaceous carcinoma at an early stage in the patient reported here