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Outcomes of strabismus surgery in thyroid disease similar with or without decompression
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Strabismus surgery with a fixed suture technique in patients with thyroid eye disease yielded similar results whether or not the patients had previously undergone orbital decompression, according to a recently published study.
Jane Gilbert, MD, and colleagues at the Casey Eye Institute in Portland, Ore., reviewed the charts of all patients with thyroid eye disease who needed strabismus surgery. There were 36 patients who had previously undergone orbital decompression surgery and 14 who had not. Those who had undergone decompression had a significantly higher amount of preoperative esotropia, an increased incidence of A-pattern and a slightly higher number of operated muscles.
In the retrospective study, a good or excellent outcome of strabismus surgery was achieved in 94% of the patients who had undergone orbital decompression and 93% in those who had not.
While previous studies had suggested that patients requiring orbital decompression have more complex thyroid eye disease and a lower success rate after strabismus surgery, “our findings suggest that this is not necessarily the case, and the difference in surgical success rates between the studies may in part be due to orbital decompression technique or indication,” the study authors said in a report in the Journal of American Association for Pediatric Ophthalmology and Strabismus.