Surgical management of congenital nystagmus.

Abstract

Forty-three patients with congenital nystagmus who underwent surgery in the Ocular Motility Clinic at The Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital, Melbourne, are analysed to assess the effect of different surgical approaches on the abnormal head posture and binocular visual performance. There were 38 patients with a horizontal head turn, and five with a vertical abnormal head posture. In those undergoing horizontal nystagmus surgery the different surgical procedures have been classified as: Anderson procedure, which involves large bilateral augmented recessions only; Kestenbaum and augmented Kestenbaum bilateral recess/resect surgery in which the recess:resect ratio is less than 1; and a modified Anderson-Kestenbaum procedure with the emphasis on large recessions, so that the bilateral recess/resect ratio is greater than 1. In this series the augmented recessions of the Anderson and Anderson-Kestenbaum procedures appeared to produce a more favourable result of improved binocular vision. The five patients with vertical abnormal head posture with nystagmus had various surgical procedures with very encouraging results, both in terms of reduction of the abnormal head posture and an even greater improvement of binocular vision than with the horizontal cases. The surgical techniques in these cases are presented and discussed.