Recurrent Tolosa-Hunt syndrome: a report of ten new cases

Ten patients (6F, 4M) with recurrent Tolosa-Hunt syndrome are reported. Besides ocular motor symptoms, one patient had trigeminal nerve involvement, one had ipsilateral ocular sympathicoplegia with miosis and ptosis, and one tinnitus during an episode of Tolosa-Hunt syndrome, ipsilateral to the pain side. One patient had Bell's palsy, one had a possible Raeder's syndrome, and one had a period of tinnitus between the Tolosa-Hunt syndrome episodes. Three of the 10 patients reported periods of periocular pain without ophthalmoplegia between the Tolosa-Hunt episodes, the pain located ipsilateral to the ophthalmoplegic side in the Tolosa-Hunt episodes. Systemic symptoms associated with Tolosa-Hunt syndrome, e.g., back pain, chronic fatigue, arthralgia, gut problems among others, occurred with the same frequency in these 10 patients as in an earlier report. Seventy per cent of the patients had signs of inflammation in serum during a period of Tolosa-Hunt syndrome. Orbital phlebograms showed pathologic signs in four of the five patients investigated during a Tolosa-Hunt period. One phlebogram was normal in a sixth patient when performed during a period of unilateral periocular pain without ophthalmolegia. Magnetic resonance imaging of the head (with contrast) was only performed in three patients during the Tolosa-Hunt period: one showed signs of inflammation in the middle fossa and two were normal. In one of the patients with normal magnetic resonance imaging, the orbital phlebogram was pathologic. Steroid treatment promptly relieved the pain in all patients.