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Could a lung tumor cause drooping eyelid and vision problems? Be sure to check what is Horner’s syndrome.
Horner’s syndrome is a series of symptoms that develop when the sympathetic nerve fibers between the brain stem and the head tissues are pinched, damaged or completely broken. This can happen, for example, as a result of an injury to the skull, the eye socket itself or the neck.
A drooping eyelid and a sunken eyeball
The classic symptoms of Horner’s syndrome are:
• ptosis – as a result, the eyelid fissure becomes narrower; the symptom occurs on the side where the nerve fibers were damaged;
• constriction of the pupil of the eye (myosis) – results from the paralysis of the retractor muscle; the result is the pupil inequality – anisocoria;
• collapse of the eyeball into the eye socket (endophtalmus),
• variegation of irises – the iris on the side of nerve damage is lighter; this symptom occurs when the lesion is congenital or lasts a long time
• very slow dilatation of the pupil on the side of the nerve damage.
It could be a lung tumor
Horner’s syndrome is sometimes a pathognomonic (characteristic) symptom Pancoast tumor. It is a neoplasm which, developing at the top of the lung, infiltrates and damages the sympathetic trunk. As a result, the following may occur:
• no sweating of the face on the side where the nerves are damaged (anhidrosis),
• reddening of the face caused by the dilatation of the blood vessels in the skin (vasodilatio).
Text: lek. med. Matylda Mazur
See: What do the eyes suffer from?
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