RESUMO
Adult hemangiomas are usually benign vascular tumors presenting as painless progressive proptosis, sometimes accompanied by serious visual loss due to compression of the optic nerve. The current treatment modality for these hemangiomas is excision through orbitotomy. However, this may be associated with potentially serious side effects like injury to optic nerve, double vision, squint and ptosis. Many reports have been published demonstrating the impressive effect of systemic propranolol in the management of infantile hemangiomas. We report the successful use of systemic propranolol in a 56-year-old lady who had an extraconal apical orbital hemangioma, compressing the optic nerve. To our knowledge, this is the first reported case of adult onset hemangioma, resolving almost completely with oral propranolol treatment.