Long-term outcomes of adjustable strabismus surgery at a Pakistani university hospital

Strabismus, whether congenital or acquired, is a common visual and cosmetic problem, especially for the young. Adjustable suture strabismus surgery is not in vogue in our country. This technique gives the surgeon a second attempt to provide a better outcome for the patients. Our objective was to assess the long-term success of adjustable strabismus surgery in terms of postoperative alignment.

We carried out a prospective study utilizing the fornix approach for adjustable strabismus surgery, in mainly horizontal, but also vertical strabismus in adults and cooperative children, to enhance the postoperative outcomes. The patient characteristics, preoperative deviation, type and pattern of strabismus, were evaluated and analyzed. The postoperative alignment was evaluated at 1 year and beyond, to assess the success of this adjustable surgery.

This study recruited 50 adults and children with a female predominance of 39 (78%); and with the mean age being 18.34 ± 9.88 years. Exotropia was the primary diagnosis in the majority with 21 (42%) cases; with purely horizontal strabismus in 23 (46%) cases. The mean preoperative horizontal deviation was 48.76 ± 20.35 prism diopters (PD) and the mean postoperative horizontal deviation was 2.73 ± 3.63 PD. The mean preoperative vertical deviation was 4.8 ± 8.54 PD whereas the mean postoperative vertical deviation was 0.86 ± 1.73 PD. The Wilcoxon Signed Ranks test analyzed the difference between the two which was statistically significant (p = 0.000). Surgical success, defined as postoperative horizontal alignment within ≤ 10 PD of orthotropia at the end of one year or more of follow-up after surgery, was achieved in 49 (98%) cases. The average follow-up was 21.47 ± 8.7 months.

Adjustable strabismus surgery has very good long-term outcomes in terms of postoperative alignment and patient satisfaction.