Factors Influencing Surgical Outcome of Intermittent Exotropia

Abstract

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to analyze the factors affecting surgical results of intermittent exotropia. Methods: A prospective interventional study included patients with basic type of intermittent exotropia who had undergone surgical treatment with a postoperative follow up period of 1 month or more. Surgical success was defined as an alignment between 10 prism diopters (PD) of exotropia or 10 PD of esotropia at 1 month. The factors investigated were: sex, age of patients, and age at initial surgery, family history, preoperative angle of deviation, type of surgery, the tendon width of lateral rectus muscle, refractive error, near binocular single vision, and postoperative alignment. After data collection, data were analyzed in SPSS version 25 software. Results: The study included 26 patients, 13 (50%) male and 13 (50%) female followed up for 3 months. All of patients achieved surgical success but patients with larger preoperative angle of deviation, older age and larger tendon muscle width showed exotropia with in (10PD) which showed slight improvement during period of follow up while those with smaller preoperative angle, younger age and smaller tendon muscle width showed esotropia with in (10) PD and associated with postoperative diplopia relieved during period of follow up with improvement of esotropia. Conclusion: In intermittent exotropia, age, tendon width, preoperative angle of deviation may predict the surgical success rate. Younger age, smaller preoperative angle, smaller tendon muscle width, early postoperative small angle esotropia were associated with a higher surgical success.