Surgical therapy of the Floppy Eyelid syndrome

Background: Floppy Eyelid is a rare condition causing chronic papillary conjunctivitis and chronic corneal disorders (superficial punctate keratitis, epithelial and stromal ulcers). It is characterized by an extremely enlarged and "floppy" upper eyelid which can be easily everted by slight elevation. Usually obese men are affected who use to sleep face down either on the right or on the left side. Pushing the eyelid against the pillow, the lid is intermittently everted at sleep. This lagophthalmus with rubbing of the exposed eye and lid structures causes all pathologic disorders. Shielding the eye at night may help temporarily. Patients: We performed surgery on 7 men with symptomatic floppy eyelid in the age of 42 to 61 years. The patients had been symptomatic between 1 month and 4 years prior to the definite diagnosis. Follow-up time has been 7 months to 4.5 years. Results: In all cases surgery achieved improvement. Conclusions: Cases of unclear conjunctival or corneal damage and inflammation should let consider Floppy Eyelid as a possible cause. The typical clinical findings make diagnosis easy. As complete stopping of eyelid-rubbing by changing the patient's sleeping habits is mostly not easily possible, for acute therapy of threatening damages to cornea and conjunctiva a surgical shortening of the lid is necessary which stabilizes the lid in order to avoid nightly spontaneous eversion for a long time.