Microphthalmia

Microphthalmia, also called microphthalmos, is a developmental disorder of the eye in which one eye (unilateral microphthalmia) or both eyes (bilateral microphthalmia) are abnormally small and have anatomic malformations. The name comes from the Greek words mikros, meaning small, and ophthalmos, meaning eye. It is a distinct condition from anophthalmia, in which the eye is absent, and from nanophthalmia, a condition in which the eye is small but no anatomical alterations are present; nanophthalmia is sometimes called simple microphthalmia, which is why the terms are easily confused. The defining feature separating microphthalmia from nanophthalmia is therefore the presence of structural malformation of the small eye.