B-scan ultrasonography in optic nerve lesions.

After a short introduction to the method used in the Royal Dutch Eye Hospital in Utrecht, for B-scan ultrasonography with Coleman's apparatus, the normal echo pattern of the optic nerve and a number of abnormalities are considered. Excavation or prominence of the disc can be established, even when the media are opaque. In retro-bulbar neuritis, certain anomalies in the echo pattern are found in a high percentage of cases, as one of the few objective changes in this condition. Leber's optic atrophy appears to give a typical echo pattern. The echographic pictures of a glioma of the optic nerve and of displacement of the optic nerve, probably due to a metastasis from a cutaneous melanoma, are described.