A NEW CLASSIFICATION OF THE EYE CHANGES OF GRAVES' DISEASE

Abstract

To the Editor. —The problem of nomenclature of the eye changes of toxic diffuse goiter (Graves' disease, Basedow's disease, and Parry's disease) remains an unsettled one. A plethora of descriptive terms has filled the literature, 1 and new ones continue to appear. It is a common experience during most any medical or eye conference on the subject to hear the eye changes in question referred to by each discussant in a different way: endocrine exophthalmos, infiltrative ophthalmopathy, progressive exophthalmos, malignant exophthalmos, and so on. As a result, a committee of the Presbyterian Hospital in the city of New York initiated, and subsequently a committee of the American Thyroid Association, finalized a classification of the eye changes of Graves' disease (Table 1 to 3). 2 Table 2 has been slightly modified from the original one, by adding measurement of vision to the descriptive material for class 6 in parentheses. This was