The Clinical Characteristics and Surgical Results in the Intermittent Exotropia more than 15 Years of Age

Lee, Se Youp; Oh, Joon Sup; Kim, Sang Jin

Abstract

We analyzed preoperative clinical characteristics, incidence of amblyopia, surgical results according to the type, resolution of preoperative symptoms and postoperative complications in 62 patients with intermittent exotropia, who were more than 15 years of age. The most frequent preoperative annoying symptom was eye strain from fatigue(40%), and the next one was cosmesis(23%). But, diplopia(14%) was relatively infrequent presenting complaint. Among 62 patients, 45 (72%) patients had equal vision, and 11 patients (18%) had amblyopia with two line difference between two eyes. The overall surgical success rate were seventy-seven percent. The 3 patients with postoperative esodeviation more than 5 prism diopters(PD) showed persistent uncrossed diplopia. The 4 patients with undercorrection more than 15 PD did not improve symptomatically. All patients with` postoperative exodeviation less than 15 PD had improvement or resolution of the symptoms. Our results suggest that overcorrection often resulted in unexpected diplopia in adults with intermittent exotropia. Therefore, it may be desirable to make undercorrection within 15 PD or orthotropic state in the patients more than 15 years of age.