ACQUIRED CENTRAL FUSION DISRUPTION FOLLOWING CATARACT-EXTRACTION

Central sensory and motor fusion of images, once established, is usual ly maintained throughout life. Under certain circumstances, this abili ty may be lost. This gives rise to the syndrome known as horror fusion is, or acquired disruption of central fusion. We report the developmen t of central fusion disruption in three patients with uniocular mature senile cataract. We postulate that this is the result of prolonged se nsory deprivation in the cataractous eye. The loss of fusion results i n a particularly troublesome type of intractable diplopia, characteriz ed by the inability to either fuse or suppress images. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first report of central fusion dis ruption following cataract surgery for senile cataract.