Motor and Sensory Outcomes of Infantile Exotropia: A 10-Year Study (2008–2017)

PURPOSE: We aimed to determine the long-term motor and sensory outcomes of patients with infantile exotropia. METHODS: In this longitudinal retrospective (historical cohort) study, the records of 76 patients with infantile exotropia were Studied. Subjects with constant exotropia manifesting before the age of 1 year who were at least 5 years old at recruitment time between 2008 and 2017 were included. RESULTS: The medical records of 26 patients were excluded due to not participating in follow-up examinations or having incomplete records. In total, 54 infantile exotropic patients (51.9% male) with a mean age of 11.1 ± 6.8 years and follow-up of 4.99 ± 3.58 years were studied. Postoperative sensory outcomes (central stereopsis [<60 sec/arc], peripheral fusion [60–3,000 sec/arc], and non-stereopsis [>3,000 sec/arc]) were observed in 38.9%, 38.9%, and 21.2% of patients, respectively. In terms of postoperative motor outcomes, 69%, 24%, and 7% were achieved as orthophoria, residual exotropia, and consecutive esotropia, respectively. Patients with a higher surgical age (p = 0.022) and better visual acuity (p = 0.004) had significantly better sensory outcomes, while higher preoperative deviation resulted in more suppression (p = 0.039, rs = 0.218). CONCLUSIONS: With rates of 69% for motor success and 78.8% for sensory success, surgical outcomes of infantile exotropic patients seems to be favorable. Further studies are recommended to verify our findings.