Late reoperations for squint.

Abstract

SUMMARY Ten patients in the age range 2 to 22 years are described who had operations initially for squint in childhood. Nine had had concomitant convergent strabismus and one divergent. All The absence of any new cases of diplopia (the two who had it preoperatively retained it without aggravation) is attributed to the fact that all cases were under-corrected, i.e., no convergent or divergent squint was converted into a divergent or convergent squint respectively, so that the noncorresponding image remained within the area of suppression, which probably extends only to the vertical meridian in a squinting eye.Although there is considerable information about initial surgery for cases of strabismus and its results, surprisingly little seems to have been written about the problem of reoperation in adult life to correct those squints which have followed operations performed usually many years previously (Jampolsky, 1975). In the last 4 years 10 such cases have been operated on successfully; the result of this group is presented partly to encourage the publication of larger series which would help clinicians to formulate clinical judgment especially regarding operation. (We have excluded cases of secondary squint not operated on because of the difficulty in tracing their records: the decision against operation was based primarily on the absence of sufficient cosmetic disability, often related to the fact that they occurred in the elderly.)From previous experience we had reached the 'Commonwealth Medical Fellow, 1975-6.