Strabismus surgery

Strabismus surgery (also: extraocular muscle surgery, eye muscle surgery, or eye alignment surgery) is surgery on the extraocular muscles to correct the misalignment of the eyes. With approximately 1.2 million procedures each year, extraocular muscle surgery is the third most common eye surgery in the United States. The earliest successful strabismus surgery intervention is known to have been performed on 26 October 1839 by Johann Friedrich Dieffenbach on a 7-year-old esotropic child; a few earlier attempts had been performed in 1818 by William Gibson of Baltimore, a general surgeon and professor at the University of Maryland.

Strabismus surgery is a one-day procedure. The patient spends only a few hours in the hospital with minimal preoperative preparation. The average duration of the surgery is variable. After surgery, the patient should expect soreness and redness. In cases of re-operations, more pain is expected. Resection of the muscles is more painful in the post operative period than recession. It also leaves redness that lasts longer and may cause some vomiting in the early post operative period.

The surgeon will provide the patient with a cover for his or her eyes that prevents light from entering. It is advisable for the patient to wear this, since stimulus to the eye (e.g., light, rolling of eyes) will cause discomfort.

Over- and undercorrection: Surgical intervention can result in the eyes being entirely aligned (orthophoria) or nearly so, or it can result in an over- or undercorrection that may necessitate further treatment or another surgical intervention. The likelihood that the eyes will stay aligned over the longer term is higher if the patient is able to achieve some degree of binocular fusion after surgery than if not. In a study on infantile esotropia patients who had either small-angle (8 diopters) esotropia or small-angle exotropia of the same size six months after the intervention, it was found that those who had the small-angle esotropia were more likely to have aligned eyes five years after the intervention than those with small-angle exotropia. There is tentative evidence that children with infantile esotropia patients achieve better binocular vision post-operatively if the surgical treatment is performed early (see: Infantile esotropia#Surgery).

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