[A tuberculous etiology in Mikulicz's syndrome]

A patient 20 years old presents bilateral hypertrophy of the lacrimal glands with discreet exophthalmos and conjunctival injection at the upper supero-external fornix level. The ocular affection appeared 6 weeks before as a painless tumefaction initially at the right eye and after that at the left eye also, with palpebral fold reduction. From childhood the patient has a ganglionary tuberculosis confirmed by the biopsy of a lateral cervical ganglion. Under the rim of the orbit on palpate the lacrimal gland as a depressible, painless mass, which is continued in the orbit. A lacrimal gland biopsy, effected at the left eye, shows the presence of dispersed nodules with round cells in the whole fragment of lacrimal gland, and epithelioid and giant cells in the center. The inflammatory phenomenon yield slowly with tuberculostatics generally and hydrocortisone in local instillations.