Refraction, including prisms

The literature in the past year on refraction is replete with several isolated but very important topics that have been of interest to strabismologists and refractionists for many decades. The refractive changes in scleral buckling procedures include an increase in axial length as well as an increase in myopia, as would be expected. Tinted lenses in dyslexia show little positive effect in the nonasthmatic patients in one study. The use of spectacles or bifocals as a way to control increase in myopia is refuted in another report. It has been shown that in accommodative esotropia not all patients will be able to escape the use of bifocals in the teenage years, even though surgery might be performed. The hope that disposable contact lenses would cut down on the instance of giant papillary conjunctivitis and keratitis has been given some credence, and the conventional theory that sclerosis alone is the cause of presbyopia is attacked. Also, gas permeable bifocal contact lenses are reviewed and the difficulties of correcting presbyopia by this method outlined. The practice of giving an aphakic less bifocal addition instead of a nonaphakic, based on the presumption of increased effective power, is challenged. In the review of prisms, the majority of articles concern prism adaption. The most significant report is that of the Prism Adaptation Study Research Group (Arch Ophthalmol 1990, 108:1248-1256), showing that acquired esotropia in particular has an increased incidence of stable and full corrections surgically in the prism adaptation group versus the control group.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)