[A recent case of palpebral anthrax]. / Charbon palpébral: à propos d'un cas.

Anthrax disease is an acute infection caused by Bacillus anthracis. It appears in three forms: pulmonary, intestinal, and cutaneous, whose palpebral location is rare but serious. The authors report the case of a 38-year-old patient who presented 3 weeks after the appearance of an upper and lower palpebral tumefaction. Questioning revealed that he was a cattle breeder. The ophthalmologic examination of the right eye brought out serosanguineous blisters, an edema, and necrotic scabs involving the upper and lower eyelids, preventing any clinical examination of the ocular bulb. The bacteriological sample was negative. The patient progressed well when treated with G penicillin, but retained a cicatricial ectropion. Anthrax is receiving increasing interest given how difficult it is to diagnose, the severe prognosis, and the possibility of its dissemination in bacteriological warfare or bioterrorism.

[Two cases of Wolfram syndrome]. / Syndrome de Wolfram. A propos de deux cas.

Wolfram syndrome is a rare autosomal recessive neurodegenerative disease; it is characterized by the appearance of diabetes mellitus in childhood associated with bilateral optic atrophy that often leads to blindness. Insipid diabetes, deafness, psychiatric disorders, anosmia, anomalies of the urinary tract, nystagmus, ataxia, and myoclonias are less frequent. We report two cases of Wolfram syndrome, diagnosed in a 12-year-old girl and a 13-year-old boy. In each case, there was a history of diabetes mellitus; they consulted for a progressive loss of vision. Ophthalmologic examination objectified that visual acuity was reduced to finger counting in both eyes as well as isolated bilateral optic atrophy and constriction of the peripheral visual field. Through these two cases and a review of the literature, we propose to study the genetic and clinical aspects of Wolfram syndrome.