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Consideration of the clinical features and animal experimental models suggests that inhibition/suppression is not involved in anisometropic amblyopia. The role of suppression in anomalous correspondence needs further elucidation. Sensory testing in Duane's syndrome, where both BSV and suppression can be highly developed, confirms that diplopia may arise spontaneously at greater ages than previously suspected. The clinical time course of development of strabismic suppression is similar to that of the sensitive period during which binocularity can be established. Blakemore (1978) suggests that it may be more useful to think of a period of heightened sensitivity which tails off gradually. This concept would similarly apply to the time during which suppression may be established which does not have a sharp cut-off at 7 years of age.

The first 46 patients to undergo surgery for squint with adjustable sutures at Moorfields Eye Hospital, City Road, London, are presented. The indications for surgery were: dysthyroid ophthalmopathy, fourth nerve palsy, monocular aphakia with strabismus and miscellaneous conditions. The technique of surgery is briefly described. The results show a high incidence of alignment, indicating the value of the technique and this is supported by long-term follow-up data where available. Treatment failures are analysed in detail.

The patients having orbital repair for a blow-out fracture, 6 months or longer after injury, had a high incidence of enophthalmos (72%). This compares badly with 17% in the non-surgical group and 20% of those who had surgery within 14 days of trauma. The residual enophthalmos was minimal in the latter two groups, but could measure 2 or 3 mm in the late surgery group. 40% of the late surgery group also needed additional orbital or muscle surgery and the fields of binocular single vision achieved were only moderately good. The good results achieved without surgery do not, of course, mean that patients with blow-out fractures do equally well regardless of surgical treatment. This study has shown that careful clinical and radiological assessment in the first 10 days permits a reasoned decision to be made whether to operate or not on any particular patient.

Once the diagnosis of thyroid eye disease has been made the doctor's problems begin because the management is long term with a condition that has many ramifications over a period of years. Short-term heroics to save vision by use of high-dose systemic steroids, orbital decompression or radiotherapy may have to be followed by control of diplopia by muscle surgery and prisms. Lid retraction, both upper and lower, may merit surgery, and even those patients who have come to terms with their facial appearance may still complain of lacrimation, irritation and grittiness. The advantages of a thyroid clinic, run jointly by a physician and an ophthalmologist, are presented and the patient is helped to live with this distressing condition.

The 'rediscovery' of adjustable sutures some 10 years ago has given the ophthalmic surgeon much more confidence in his ability to correct strabismus. Three methods of use are described: during surgery under general anaesthesia with adjustment during the operation using the 'springback' test to centralise the eye; during surgery under general anaesthesia and subsequent adjustment under local anaesthesia using the patient's subjective responses to obtain optimal positioning; and performance of the operation and adjustment under topical local anaesthesia in one procedure. Full details are given of each technique and the indications for their application to particular problems are discussed.

We have characterized the mononuclear cell infiltrate in the extraocular muscle of three patients with Graves' disease, using antibodies which permit staining of paraffin-embedded tissue. The majority of lymphocytes, occurring in foci or interstitially, were T cells, most of which stain for CD3 or with UCHL1. T cells few, if any, stained with SN130, directed against the CD45R determinant. This suggests that these lymphocytes comprise a recently activated population within which memory cells may reside. B cells were also found but were predominantly confined to focal aggregates, and in one patient lymphoid follicles were seen. The orbital fat and connective tissue from a further two patients contained very few infiltrating cells which were mainly UCHL1-positive. Eye muscle cells did not express Ia antigens but the interstitial cells between them were Ia-positive and the vascular endothelium in four of the five specimens also stained with Ia. These results indicate that Graves' ophthalmopathy is associated with T cell, and to a lesser extent B cell, responses against the retrobulbar tissues; the extraocular muscle interstitial cells, probably including fibroblasts, may be targets of activation resulting from this infiltration.

We have sought human eye muscle membrane binding antibodies in patients with Graves' ophthalmopathy using an enzyme-linked immunoassay. Antibodies were found in patients with thyroid autoimmunity irrespective of eye signs, and binding correlated closely (r = 0.94) with binding to skeletal muscle, showing that these antibodies are not site-specific. T cells from patients with thyroid autoimmunity proliferated in response to eye muscle, but again this was not specific for eye muscle or the presence of ophthalmopathy. No single antigen was responsible for inducing proliferation. These results fail to confirm a recent report of eye muscle membrane binding antibodies in a high proportion of patients with ophthalmopathy, and suggest instead that T and B cell autoreactivity to striated muscle antigens is a frequent feature of autoimmune thyroid disease, unlikely to be directly related to eye disease.

Thirty-four patients with surgically treated bilateral superior oblique palsy are presented. The patients are divided into three groups: Symmetrical palsies, Asymmetrical palsies, A group in whom the bilaterality was initially masked. Bilaterality should be suspected in all cases of traumatic IVth nerve paresis, and particularly in cases with a large 'V' pattern, excyclo deviation of more than 10 degrees on down-gaze and when right hypertropia switches to left hypertropia on lateral down-gaze. Bilateral Harada-Ito procedures alone 'cured' 11 of 17 patients (65 per cent) in groups 1 and 2, and is the operation of choice in acute bilateral superior oblique palsy. Cyclo deviation was reduced by a mean of 5.5 degrees in the primary position and by 6-10 degrees in down-gaze. Patients initially managed with other surgery had a more complicated surgical course and required more operations. Seven patients who initially demonstrated only gross fusion recovered good fusion after Harada-Ito surgery.