[Perspectives in diagnosis and therapy of orbital diseases]

New or prospectively promising developments in diagnostics and therapy of orbital diseases are presented. Essential improvement concerns computerized tomography (finer stratification) and magnetic resonance tomography (specific imaging methods like suppression of the orbital fat signal). Three dimensional reconstruction is particularly useful. Diagnostic of vascular processes is facilitated by color doppler imaging. The Doppler signal is superimposed in color over a conventional gray-scale ultrasound image, thus giving additional information about blood flow in vessels. Application of endonasal surgery, which in ENT has been developed to great perfection, enables different surgical interventions, e.g. extraction of favourably positioned foreign bodies and decompressive procedures in Graves' disease. More precise and less side-effect-producing radiotherapy is permitted by a new procedure in which special plastic tubes are implanted, which tips are positioned as closely as possible to the area to be irradiated. Irradiation commences by insertion of radioactive iridium into these tubes by a computer-controlled injection-device. As a prospect for near future the possibility of endoscopical orbital interventions, e.g. biopsies is to be mentioned.