Moebius Syndrome with Hypoglossal Palsy, Syndactyly, Brachydactyly, and Anisometropic Amblyopia

Moebius syndrome is a rare cause of congenital facial and abducens palsy.( )It is sometimes associated with musculoskeletal abnormalities and other cranial nerve palsies. Genetics and ischemic insults to the fetus are considered to be the cause of this syndrome. We report here a 12-year-old female patient who was presented to us with poor cosmesis of her face, with associated decreased vision and lagophthalmos in her left eye. She didn’t have any signs of exposure keratopathy in the affected eye. Her best-corrected vision was 20/20 and 20/60 in right and left eyes respectively. The cause of decreased vision in her left eye was found to be anisometropic amblyopia, due to asymmetric hyperopic astigmatism in her eyes. She did not report diplopia in any gaze position. Examination of her cranial nerve revealed left facial, abducens, and hypoglossal nerve palsy, leading us to the diagnosis of Moebius syndrome. Apart from that, she had syndactyly in one of her hands, and brachydactyly in both. Since the eyes were straight in their primary position, no surgical intervention was carried out for her lagophthalmos, which was measured to be only 2 mm. This was to prevent any post-operative iatrogenic ptosis. The condition requires a multidisciplinary approach involving the opinions of a neuro-ophthalmologist, strabismologist, and oculoplastics for the management of the complications associated with the disease.