Distance stereo acuity improvement in intermittent exotropic patients following strabismus surgery.

To determine whether distance stereo acuity improved following strabismus surgery in patients with intermittent exotropia, we tested 20 patients (5 to 87 years old) preoperatively and postoperatively using the Mentor BVAT II Video acuity tester (Santa Barbara, Calif) and binocular visual system. Acuity improved in 75% as assessed by contour circles and in 45% as assessed by random dot E tests at distance. Our results suggest that surgical realignment of intermittent exotropia restores distance stereo acuity.

Distance stereoacuity. Assessing control in intermittent exotropia.

Background: A patient's ability to control an intermittent exotropic deviation is usually assessed by subjective means such as observation of control in the office, questioning the patient and/or family about control at home, and reports of monocular eye closure in bright light. An objective method of assessing control has not been developed.

Purpose: The purposes of this study are to determine if distance stereoacuity was different in patients with intermittent exotropia than in normal subjects and to determine if distance stereoacuity could be used as a objective means of assessing control in intermittent exotropia.

Vertical saccades in superior oblique palsy.

Vertical saccadic velocities in 10 patients who had unilateral superior oblique muscle palsy and 14 normal subjects were measured with the magnetic scleral search coil. The authors sought to determine whether downward saccades in patients who had superior oblique palsy are slow. Peak velocities of 10 degrees and 20 degrees saccades performed in the superior and inferior fields of the orbit, and 10 degrees, 20 degrees, and 30 degrees saccades performed across the center of the orbit were recorded with the eye in center gaze, 30 degrees of adduction, and 30 degrees of abduction.

The Rieger syndrome and a chromosome 13 deletion.

The Rieger syndrome, characterized by a prominent Schwalbe line, iris strands to the cornea, iris hypoplasia, dental abnormalities, facial malformations, and umbilical defects, is inherited in an autosomal dominant pattern. We studied a boy with the ocular features of the Rieger syndrome, micrognathia, and redundancy of the periumbilical skin. Chromosome analysis revealed an interstitial deletion of the long arm of chromosome 13 involving the distal region of band q14 through band q31.