sensory strabismus

Sensory strabismus, also called sensory heterotropia, is a strabismus that follows a primary sensory deficit in one eye.¹ Reduced acuity in that eye is a severe obstacle to sensory fusion and may abolish the fusion mechanism altogether.¹

The causes are as many as the conditions that reduce acuity in one eye.¹ The most common are anisometropia, injuries, corneal opacities, congenital or traumatic unilateral cataracts, macular lesions and optic atrophy.¹ Sensory exotropia follows partial or complete disruption of fusion, and the deviation characteristically involves the amblyopic eye.²

With visual loss beginning between birth and 5 years of age, esotropia and exotropia occur with almost equal frequency.¹ Exotropia predominates with onset in older children and adults, and the degree of visual impairment does not predict the direction.¹ Any esotropia may be sensory and may be the first sign of poor acuity or blindness in one eye, so every strabismic patient needs an examination of the entire globe.¹