[Indications for and the methods of surgical treatment of oblique strabismus]

The authors present a group of 3500 patients treated surgically in the years 1961-1986 for disturbances of function of the oblique muscles. Two forms of these disturbances are discussed. The first one--acquired paresis of the trochlearis muscle, most frequently a sequelae of injury, the second one--congenital disturbances of action of the superior oblique, with hyperfunction of the inferior oblique, determined as "strabismus sursoadductorius". When the healthy eye was the master eye one the authors performed operations weakening the inferior oblique which was in hyperfunction (recession, partial marginal tenotomy, myectomy, elongation) or they strengthened the superior oblique (plication) because of its paresis. In patients with the affected eye as the master one they weakened the opposite inferior rectus (recession) or strengthened the opposite superior rectus (resection). In cases of a coexistence of a horizontal deviation also this deviation was treated surgically. Five thousand seven hundred four operations had been performed. The vertical deviation was corrected in 75.5 p.c. and diminished in 24 p.c. Binocular single vision without compensatory positioning of the head was attained in 55.4 p.c. of patients, with a small compensatory positioning of the head--in 10.8 p.c.