Pediatric Surgery

The leading cause of pediatric eye surgery is a condition called strabismus. Some strabismus problems are often called cross-eyes or wandering eye. When one eye is turned outward, this is usually a disorder of the eyes involving a lack of coordination between the muscles of the eyes. Essentially, the eyes do not point in the same direction.

Strabismus is often a misalignment of the eye that can be caused by extraocular muscle imbalance; one fovea is not directed at the same object as the other. Strabismus can affect depth perception.

There are various types of muscle imbalances.

• As stated previously, one such imbalance is referred to as cross-eyes. The medical term is "esotropia", which produces symptoms best described as eyes that don’t point at the same object together.
• Another type of misalignment is called wall-eyes or "Exotropia", which appears to be a problem with eye muscles.
• Another condition is often called lazy eye. The medical term for this type of strabismus problem is "amblyopia". Amblyopia occurs when one or both eyes fail to develop normal sight during childhood. Without corrective treatment, the disorder leads to significant visual loss and diminished depth perception.
  
  The condition may be caused from a constant or an occasional eye turn. When the condition persists during childhood, the affected eye may become lazy.

• Lack of parallelism of the visual axis of the eyes is a deviation of one or both eyes. This can prevent the patient from viewing the same object with both eyes at the same time. Eye misalignment can also be caused by an imbalance in the muscles holding the eyeball.

Surgery

Strabismus surgery is used to realign the muscles that control eye movements. The need for surgery depends on which way the eye is turning, the severity of the turned or crossed eye, and whether or not improvements can be made through glasses or vision therapy.