Apparent exophthalmos in the rat following cortisone treatment or thyroidectomy.

Abstract

CLINICAL exophthalmos in man is associated with an increase in the mass of retrobulbar tissues (Dobyns, 1950). Although the etiology of the changes in these tissues is not well understood, it appears that most of the alterations are in the connective tissue, fat, and muscular components. Experimental exophthalmos produced by treatment with pituitary preparations in adult guinea pigs is also associated with an increase in the mass of retrobulbar tissues and with histological changes similar to those seen in human exophthalmos (Smelser, 1937). Recently exophthalmos has been reported to occur in rats receiving cortisone (Aterman and Greenberg, 1953). Others have reported exophthalmos in rats which had been thyroidectomized (Leblond and Eartley, 1952) or had been fed either iodine deficient (Thompson, 1933) or low salt diets (Yudkin, Farquhar and Wakerman, 1933). Apparently these observations were based only on visual examination of living animals. In all of these studies young animals were used.