Lid Splitting and Posterior Lamellar Cryosurgery for Congenital Distichiasis

ABSTRACT

Congenital distichiasis is a rare condition in which accessory row of lashes is present in place of the Meibomian gland orifice. These aberrent ciliae irritate the cornea and conjunctiva and therefore cause epiphora, photophobia, conjunctival injection, corneal erosions, and may develop into opacification. All four patients from the same family who had anomalous row of lashes in their eyelids complained of the same persistent ocular irritation along with strabismus and ptosis. We performed, on all of the four patients, lid splitting along the gray line and cryotherapy to the posterior lid lamella where the follicles of aberrent ciliae are located, and excised redundant skin of upper and lower lids. By these operations, all four patients showed improvement in their ocular irritaton. We report clinical presentation of four patien~s of congenital distichiasis and believe lid splitting and cryosurgery is effective method for congenital disti chiasis.