The Stilling-Duane's retraction syndrome is a congenital abnormality of ocular movements. In order to maintain simple binocular vision, most patients adopt an abnormal head posture; this can be corrected by surgery.
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.
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 the cases with disease predominance in the left eye, 18% in the right eye, and 7% with bilateral, symmetrical disease), and associated anisometropia (18%) or amblyopia (12.5%). Approximately 1 of 5 patients sought medical advice only after 20 years of age. A compensating head turn (towards the ill side in patients with esotropia and towards the healthy side in patients with exotropia) was found in 71% of the cases. Our surgery (10 patients with a mean follow-up of 8 months) resulted in a decreased head turn in 7 cases.
The purpose of this surgery is to improve the head turn without worsening retraction. This can be achieved with simple muscle recessions.