Strabismus Surgery

During my paediatric ophthalmology fellowship, I commonly turned to the perennial Wright’s “Color Atlas of Strabismus Surgery”. While it continues to serve as a traditional reliable source for trainees and practising ophthalmologists to understand strabismus patterns and deviations, it lacks some of the current methodology and clinical experiential details for complex strabismus. Dr Ludwig’s Strabismus Surgery book is a refreshing unique manual that addresses strabismus patterns with regards to the underlying mechanisms. This unconventional organisation includes 36 chapters in which strabismus topics are addressed by clinical experts with relevant clinical pearls, representative cases, and overall editor comments. In addition, a clear strength of this book is that these well-written chapters are supplemented by 636 germane illustrations, and 91 effective strabismus videos. In particular, the strabismus diagnosis and surgical treatment section includes excellent and distinctive chapters on collagen and healing, injection of eye muscles to treat Strabismus, and Strabismus related to central nervous system disorders (Duane’s syndrome, nystagmus surgery, disassociated vertical deviations and cranial nerve palsies). For the surgeon’s appetite, the following chapters of advanced techniques include pulley surgeries, injection techniques, adjustable sutures/hang-back suture techniques, miniprocedures/compartmental surgery for small angle strabismus, and transpositions are quite satiating. Dr Ludwig’s book has a comprehensive approach to strabismus surgery and discussion in terms of surgical decision making that not only caters to trainees in terms of resident and paediatric ophthalmology fellows, but addresses issues that veteran strabismus surgeons would find applicable, especially the botulinum toxin and traumatic strabismus sections. After reviewing the book, I had my paediatric ophthalmology fellow look at the book and who favourably noted that this book would be “great for paediatric ophthalmology fellows”. While the clear strength of this book is the involvement of numerous clinical experts, there are several presented topics that are controversial, and as editor, Dr Ludwig admirably balances her comments with these diverse points of views. Overall, this is an excellent strabismus surgery book with up-to-date illustrations and videos, that will prove useful to any future and current strabismus surgeons.