Elsevier

Ophthalmology

Volume 121, Issue 4, April 2014, Pages 877-882
Ophthalmology

Original article
Incidence, Types, and Lifetime Risk of Adult-Onset Strabismus

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ophtha.2013.10.030Get rights and content

Objective

To describe the incidence and types of adult-onset strabismus in a geographically defined population.

Design

Retrospectively reviewed population-based cohort.

Participants

All adult (≥19 years of age) residents of Olmsted County, Minnesota, diagnosed with new-onset adult strabismus from January 1, 1985, through December 31, 2004.

Methods

The medical records of all potential cases identified by the resources of the Rochester Epidemiology Project were reviewed.

Main Outcome Measures

Incidence rates for adult-onset strabismus and its types.

Results

Seven hundred fifty-three cases of new-onset adult strabismus were identified during the 20-year period, yielding an annual age- and gender-adjusted incidence rate of 54.1 cases (95% confidence interval, 50.2–58.0) per 100 000 individuals 19 years of age and older. The 4 most common types of new-onset strabismus were paralytic (44.2% of cases), convergence insufficiency (15.7%), small-angle hypertropia (13.3%), and divergence insufficiency (10.6%). The incidence of adult-onset strabismus overall and its 4 most common forms significantly increased with age (P <0.001 for all), with a peak incidence in the eighth decade of life. The lifetime risk of being diagnosed with adult-onset strabismus was 4.0% in women and 3.9% in men.

Conclusions

Paralytic strabismus was the most common subtype of new-onset adult strabismus in this population-based cohort. All of the most common forms of adult-onset strabismus increased with age, especially after the sixth decade of life. Further characterization of strabismus types found in this study is warranted to better define this disorder.

Section snippets

Study Population

The study population included all Olmsted County, Minnesota, residents 19 years of age and older who were newly diagnosed with some form of strabismus from January 1, 1985, through December 31, 2004. Olmsted County is a small urban region approximately 90 miles (145 km) southeast of Minneapolis, and in 2000, approximately 70% of the county's population (124277) lived within the city limits of Rochester. The racial distribution of county residents in 2000 was 90.3% white, 4.3% Asian, 2.7% black

General Characteristics

New-onset adult strabismus developed in 753 individuals in Olmsted County, Minnesota, during the 20-year period. Three hundred forty patients (45.2%) were men and the cohort was diagnosed at a median age of 65 years (range, 19–100 years). Six-hundred forty-nine patients (86.2%) had diplopia on initial presentation. Esotropia was the primary deviation for 261 patients (34.7%), exotropia for 251 patients (33.3%), and hypertropia for 241 patients (32.0%). There were no cases of torsional diplopia

Discussion

The present study provides data on the incidence and various subtypes of adult-onset strabismus in a defined population from the upper Midwest region of the United States. The 4 most common types of new-onset strabismus were paralytic (44.2%), convergence insufficiency (15.7%), small-angle hypertropia (13.3%), and divergence insufficiency (10.6%). Based on the age- and gender-adjusted annual incidence rate of 54.1 cases per 100 000 people, strabismus would be expected to develop in

References (39)

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Financial Disclosure(s): The author(s) have no proprietary or commercial interest in any materials discussed in this article. Supported by the National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland (grant nos.: UL1 RR024150, R01 AG034676, and UI0EY018810 [JMH]); and in part an unrestricted grant from Research to Prevent Blindness, Inc, New York, New York.

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