Transconjunctival Approach for Intraorbital Tumors

To the Editor.  —In the June 1987 issue of the Archives, Shields and colleagues¹ presented a well-documented clinicopathologic case of cavernous hemangioma of the orbit. The authors stated that the surgical approach depends on the tumor's size and location, and they employed a lateral orbitotomy. We report a case of orbital hemangioma at the same location and larger in size that was removed by a transconjunctival approach with a cryosurgical probe (Figure).Since 1981, we have abandoned the classical lateral orbitotomy procedure; we use a simple transconjunctival approach for the removal of orbital tumors. With the introduction of the computed tomographic scan, we believe that accurate localization of orbital lesions eliminates the need for orbital exploration and "search for the tumor." A large exposure of the orbit is therefore not necessary, and, as most orbital tumors are compressible, even masses larger than the eyeball can be removed transconjunctivally without