Ocular components before and after acquired, nonaccommodative esotropia

Acquired nonaccommodative esotropia describes the sudden onset of a constant, comitant strabismus of idiopathic origin in children >6 months of age.

We present a case of acquired nonaccommodative esotropia at 20 months of age in a subject participating in the Berkeley Infant Biometry Study, a longitudinal study of emmetropization and ocular component development in infants between 3 months and 3 years of age. Ocular components for this child were normal before the onset of strabismus (within 2 SD's of the mean for orthotropic study participants) for refractive error, corneal power, lens radii, lens power, and ocular axial dimensions. Refractive error postsurgically was significantly more hyperopic and crystalline lens power lower than average at +2.38 D and 37.2 D, respectively.

The lack of abnormal ocular parameters is consistent with the idiopathic etiology of acute onset esotropia. This case suggests that ocular component values may not be useful for assessing the risk of acquired nonaccommodative esotropia.