STILLING-DUANES RETRACTION SYNDROME - SUR GICAL OPTIONS

Background The Stilling-Duane's retraction syndrome is a congenital ab normality of ocular movements. In order to maintain simple binocular v ision, most patients adopt an abnormal head posture; this can be corre cted by surgery. Materials and methods We carried out a retrospective study of the clinical files of 56 patients who presented with Duane's syndrome and had been examined at the Strabological Department of the Lausanne Eye Clinic between 1974 and 1993. Results Our group study is comparable to that found in the literature as regards the distribution according to sex (45% of males. 55% of females), laterality (75% of t he cases with disease predominance in the left eye, 18% in the right e ye, and 7% with bilateral, symmetrical disease), and associated anisom etropia (18%) or amblyopia (12.5%). Approximately 1 of 5 patients soug ht medical advice only after 20 years of age. A compensating head turn (towards the ill side in patients with esotropia and towards the heal thy side in patients with exotrapia) was found in 71% of the cases. Ou r surgery (10 patients with a mean follow-up of 8 months) resulted in a decreased head turn in 7 cases. Conclusions The purpose of this surg ery is to improve the head turn without worsening retraction. This can be achieved with simple muscle recessions.