Strabismus in senile cataract patients

Purpose: We sought to determine the prevalence of strabismus among patients with senile cataract. Methods: Forty-seven consecutive patients who were scheduled for cataract surgery underwent complete eye examinations, including ocular alignment evaluation. Twenty-four normal adults of the same age range underwent also complete eye examinations and were used as a control group. All patients of the cataract group underwent unilateral cataract surgery. The angle of strabismus was measured by the prism and cover test or prism and corneal reflex test. Results: Mean preoperative deviation of the study group was 17.8 +/- 9.7 prism diopters (PD) of exophoria/tropia. In this group, 70.2% had exophoria and 27.7% had exotropia. In the control group exophoria was found in 75% of the persons whereas none of them had any heterotropia. Mean deviation in the control group was 4.7 +/- 5.1 PD of exophoria. Postoperatively, the angle of exophoria/tropia improved to 12.8 +/- 8.5 PD, which was different from the preoperative measurements (P < 0.01). In this group 78.8% had exophoria and 19.1% had exotropia. Conclusions: Patients with cataract have greater tendency to develop exotropia or exophoria than noncataract persons of the same age. Cataract surgery improves the heterophoric status of these patients.