Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to W E Scott.
A curved, hinged ruler for measurement along the surface of the globe during strabismus surgery has been designed. A modification of a previously described curved ruler, the current model has a hinge for greater ease of maneuverability and a "T" piece on one end to facilitate measurement and marking of both poles of the muscle without repositioning the ruler.
Lithium is a two-edged sword; it is on the one hand a unique drug with invaluable psychoactive potential and on the other a drug which can cause multisystem toxicity and even death. We present a case of severe lithium intoxication with multiple organ involvement. Our patient developed the adult respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), nephrogenic diabetes insipidus (DI), distinctive neurological abnormalities, and hyperglycemia. We believe that this is a case of ARDS due to lithium toxicity in which elevated left atrial pressures were excluded by right heart catheterization and suggest a causal relationship between lithium and ARDS.
PURPOSE: The purpose of this study is to analyze the visual results of full-time occlusion therapy in pediatric patients with monocular structural abnormalities and amblyopia. METHODS: The authors reviewed the charts of visually immature patients with unilateral structural abnormalities and decreased visual acuity, who presented to the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics over a 20-year period, and underwent amblyopia therapy. The results were categorized according to the type of structural abnormality (i.e., partial media opacity, macula lesion, or optic nerve abnormality). Associated factors, including anisometropia, strabismus, age of presentation, and pupillary responses, were analyzed. RESULTS: Fifty-one percent of the 51 patients in the study achieved a visual acuity of at least 20/80, including 72% of the patients with media opacities, 42% with macular lesions, and 21% with optic nerve anomalies. Strabismus and anisometropia occurred frequently and were not prognostically significant. Relative afferent pupillary defects did not contraindicate good results. Amblyopia recurred in 31% of patients and was successfully treated with resumption of full-time occlusion. Occlusion amblyopia occurred in only one patient and was easily reversed. CONCLUSION: The authors recommend a trial of full-time occlusion for patients with all three types of unilateral structural abnormalities. The patients with partial media opacities have a high success rate. Despite lower success rates for the other two groups, good results are possible; no better treatment option exists.
PURPOSE: To review the results of adjustable suture surgery in patients with strabismus secondary to thyroid ophthalmopathy to determine long-term outcome and to identify postoperative complications. METHODS: The records of 1524 patients with thyroid ophthalmopathy were retrospectively reviewed to identify those who required treatment for strabismus in the ocular motility clinic. Treatment consisted of adjustable suture surgery, prisms, or both. Elimination of diplopia in primary and reading positions was used at the criterion for success. RESULTS: Forty-seven patients were treated with adjustable suture surgery, with an average follow-up of 41 months. Results after 1 or more surgeries were: 47% excellent, 26% good, 19% fair, and 9% poor. Significant postoperative complications included eyelid retraction and A-pattern exodeviation. Sixteen of 18 patients with fair or poor outcomes after the initial surgery were recognized within 6 months. Postoperative changes in vertical deviation from primary position to downgaze were predictive of postoperative diplopia in downgaze. Analysis of multiple preoperative characteristics showed no statistically significant associations with outcome. Eight additional patients had adequate relief of diplopia using prisms alone, with an average follow-up of 49 months. CONCLUSIONS: Long-term symptomatic relief of diplopia was obtained in the majority of patients using adjustable suture strabismus surgery, combined occasionally with small amounts of prism postoperatively. Prisms alone provided effective long-term relief in patients with small-to-moderate deviations.
Full tendon width vertical transposition (Knapp procedure) of the horizontal recti is an established treatment for double elevator palsy (DEP) but the long-term stability of the surgical results have not been well studied. We undertook a retrospective study to determine the overall effectiveness of the Knapp procedure, the postoperative stability of alignment, and the influence of prior inferior rectus muscle recession (IRc) on the magnitude of correction. Nineteen patients with DEP underwent a Knapp procedure. Eight were corrected to within 5 delta of orthophoria, six were undercorrected, and five were overcorrected by at least 5 delta after a mean follow-up of 3 years (to last visit or to further surgical intervention). The average vertical correction was 37.5 delta in patients who underwent a prior IRc compared with 21.1 delta in patients with no prior IRc (p = < 0.0017). Over and undercorrections were more likely to occur in patients with prior IRc. Postoperative drift was towards increased effect in all patients. The seven patients with long-term (> 36 months) follow-up demonstrated an increased magnitude of correction (average = 12.6 delta) over an average follow-up of 76 months. The Knapp procedure had an increasing effect over time but the amount of vertical correction did not correlate with the size of the preoperative vertical deviation and was less predictable when a prior IRc had been performed.
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One hundred twenty-four patients with anisometropia of 1 diopter or greater and amblyopia were reviewed as to the type and amount of anisometropia, whether or not they had consulted with an ophthalmologist, visual acuity before and after treatment, and type of treatment. The patient population was divided into five groups according to the type of anisometropia. Eighty-two percent of all patients reached a visual acuity of 20/40 or better. Eighteen percent of all patients reached a visual acuity of 20/20. The best visual acuity obtained was not found to be related to the degree of anisometropia or the age at which treatment was begun. Patients with myopic and compound myopic astigmatism/mixed astigmatism anisometropia had poorer visual outcomes. There was a strong positive correlation between the initial visual acuity and the best visual acuity obtained (P = 0.0001).
OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the effects of "ego bias" on physicians' prognostic judgments. Ego bias is defined as systematic overestimation of the prognosis of one's own patients compared with the expected outcome of a population of similar patients. DESIGN: A prospective study of an inception cohort of critically ill patients followed until death or discharge from the hospital. PATIENTS: Consecutive patients admitted to either an ICU or an intermediate ICU at a teaching hospital during January and February 1987, excluding patients admitted after coronary artery bypass grafting, for elective dialysis, or transferred to the intermediate ICU from another critical care unit. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES AND COMPARISONS: House officers' and critical care attending physicians' assessments of the likelihood of inhospital survival for each patient, and their assessments of the overall survival rate of ICU and intermediate ICU patients were compared with each other and with actual survival rates. RESULTS: The attending physicians' predictions for individual patients were significantly lower than their judgments of the overall survival rate, 79.8% vs. 88.0%, p = .0067, suggesting the presence of a "reverse ego bias." The house officers' predictions for individual patients were significantly higher than their judgments of the overall survival rate, 73.5% vs. 68.9%, p = .018, suggesting the presence of ego bias. The magnitude and directions of these differences varied significantly among the attending physicians (F = 4.3, degrees of freedom = 3, p = .0062 by repeated-measures analysis of variance) and the house officers (F = 6.3, degrees of freedom = 5, p = .0001). CONCLUSIONS: The critical care attending physicians exhibited reverse ego bias that was mainly a function of their optimism about the overall survival rate for critically ill patients. The house officers exhibited ego bias that was mainly a function of their pessimism about the overall survival rate for critically ill patients.
The distance from the corneoscleral limbus to the insertion site of the medial rectus muscle was measured at several stages of medial rectus recession surgery in 20 patients (40 eyes) with infantile esotropia. Disinsertion of the medial rectus muscle resulted in a mean reduction in the distance from the muscle insertion site to the corneoscleral limbus of 0.903 mm (P less than .001), whereas the use of fixation forceps on the insertion to abduct the eye resulted in an additional mean reduction of 0.306 mm (P less than .01). The strabismus surgeon often uses the muscle insertion site as a reference point in determining the desired location for recessing a muscle. Our results suggest that this method of measurement is unreliable in infantile esotropia because the position of the medial rectus muscle insertion site varies considerably during surgery.
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Inexperienced physicians may make prognostic judgments and management decisions about acutely ill patients in the absence of supervision. We hypothesized that mathematically combining judgments of junior and senior house officers might yield aggregate judgments as good as those made by experienced critical care attending physicians. We obtained independent quantitative assessments of the likelihood of in-hospital survival for 269 sequential intensive care unit admissions from the patient's intern or resident and the critical care fellow and attending physician on duty within 24 hours of admission, and compared these judgements with mortality data. By logistic regression, the residents' and fellows' judgments added independent prognostic information to each other (likelihood ratio chi 2, 7.6; df = 1). The junior house officers' and fellows' assessments were significantly less reliable than the attending physicians' by calibration curves, and by Brier scores, 0.126 and 0.127 vs 0.119. All physicians had good discriminating ability (receiver operating characteristic areas [SE] were 0.83 [0.03], 0.85 [0.03], 0.86 [0.03], respectively). A simple average of the residents' and fellows' judgments was slightly but significantly more reliable by calibration curve and by Brier score, 0.117, and as discriminating (ROC area = 0.85, SE = 0.03) as the attending physicians' judgments. Nonmedical studies have shown that averaging independent judgments may compensate for people's tendency to make extreme estimates, and may take advantage of their complementary abilities. This first medical application of this technique suggests that this form of voting by secret ballot may prove useful for health care teams making other judgments and decisions.
We reviewed the records of 78 patients who underwent 128 surgical procedures for congenital or infantile cataracts before age 30 months for the type and frequency of postoperative complications. The surgeries included 92 limbal lensectomies and anterior vitrectomies, 13 pars plicata lensectomies, 20 aspirations, and three additional procedures. Complications developed after 21 of the 105 lensectomy and anterior vitrectomy procedures. Ten eyes (10%) required additional surgery for a secondary membrane, 12 eyes (11%) developed glaucoma, and one (1%) developed a retinal detachment. Patients who underwent surgery by 8 weeks of age had a significantly greater number of complications (P less than .025). Patients undergoing cataract surgery early in life should be routinely examined for possible postoperative glaucoma. The best method for reducing secondary membrane formation and some types of glaucoma appears to be an extensive removal of the lens cortex, posterior capsule, and anterior vitreous.
From 1971 through 1985, a diagnosis of monocular congenital cataract was made in 14 consecutive patients. All patients had a visually significant cataract that was documented at birth or within 2 months of age. All patients were followed up long enough to report distance linear recognition acuity. Excellent visual acuity (V/A) correlated with earlier surgery, earlier contact lens fit, and excellent amblyopia therapy compliance. The oldest age for attainment of excellent or good V/A was 17 weeks. Patching therapy was based on the binocular fixation pattern. The patching program consisted of 50% occlusion until the age of 2 months and gradually increased to 100% occlusion after the age of 7 months. Six patients (43%) attained excellent V/A (greater than 20/50), with three patients (21%) attaining good V/A (20/60 to 20/100) and five patients attaining poor V/A (less than 20/100).
Physicians often must make prognostic judgments for critically ill patients, but we know little about how well they can perform this task. We prospectively measured disagreements among different physicians' quantitative prognostic judgments for 269 sequential admissions to an ICU, and evaluated the accuracy and discriminating ability of judgments made by different types of physicians. Many (44.7%) patients provoked one or more disagreements of at least 20 percentage points among the three possible pairings of physicians. Many patients whom one physician thought were certain to survive did not inspire such certainty in another of their doctors. The critical care attendings thought the changes of survival were less than or equal to 80% for 23, and between 81% and 95% for another 46 of 85 patients whom the patients' own attendings thought were certain to survive. There were some differences in the accuracy of the different physicians' estimates. All doctors showed excellent overall discriminating ability, but discriminated less well for postoperative patients. Lack of consensus about how to judge prognosis for critically ill patients may make it difficult to decide whom to admit to ICUs. These results underscore the need for valid predictive models to aid in decision-making for critically ill patients.
Sixty-two patients, 48 with a diagnosis of persistent hyperplastic primary vitreous (PHPV) and 14 with monocular congenital cataract (MCC) are reported. Nineteen patients with a diagnosis of PHPV and all patients with MCC received surgery with attempted visual rehabilitation. Early age of surgery, prompt optical correction with contact lens and aggressive patching therapy are required for successful visual rehabilitation. Glaucoma, retinal or optic nerve pathology, surgery later than three months of age or combinations of these factors were associated with poor prognosis. Isolated microphthalmos was not correlated with poor prognosis. Binocular fixation pattern was used to monitor patching therapy. Optokinetic nystagmus, visual evoked potentials or forced preferential looking were not employed. Of the 33 patients who underwent surgery, 10 (30%) achieved good (greater than or equal to 20/50) visual acuity, 8 (24%) achieved fair (20/60 to 20/100) and 15 (46%) achieved poor vision. In selected patients with the diagnosis of PHPV or MCC, visual rehabilitation can be achieved.
Vertical transposition of the horizontal rectus muscles is the preferred operation in cases of A and V pattern strabismus in which oblique muscle dysfunction is inadequate to merit oblique surgery. Fifty-nine patients undergoing standard horizontal surgery with half tendon width vertical offsets and eight patients undergoing two-thirds to full tendon width offsets were retrospectively studied. Technique for pattern measurement and surgery are discussed. Postoperative data were analysed on a short-term (less than six weeks) and long-term (greater than 12 months) basis. Standard horizontal surgery combined with half-tendon width vertical transposition is shown to be an effective operation for collapsing all subgroups of A and V pattern strabismus when indications are appropriate. The initial correction to within +/- 10 D of pattern was 96% over all with 78% remaining collapsed to within +/- 10 D over an average 36-month follow-up. Recess-resect, bimedial and bilateral rectus recession operations with offsets are all approximately equally effective in pattern collapse. A graded pattern collapse response was found with greater collapse being related to greater initial pattern. The risk of conversion, from a more desirable pattern (AET, VXT) to a less desirable pattern (AXT, VET) is low (7.3%). For patterns greater than 30 D, three quarters to full-tendon width offsets were effective in collapsing pattern. For A and V patterns with significant oblique muscle dysfunction, oblique surgery is advocated.
One hundred thirty patients with strabismic amblyopia who underwent full-time occlusion therapy (FTO) and were followed through to at least 9 years of age were evaluated to determine the stability of visual acuity after visual maturity (after 9 years of age). Of these 130 patients, 89 are included in this review. At the conclusion of the FTO therapy, 92% (82/89) had attained a visual acuity of 20/40 or better, 6% (5/89) had attained 20/50-20/100, and 2% (2/89) remained at 20/200 or less. Of the nine patients in this series in whom patching was initiated between the ages of 6 and 9 years of age, a good visual result was seen in 89% (8/9), with 63% (5/8) of those attaining 20/20 vision. The final visual acuity in this group of patients was taken at an average patient age of 15.9 years. In 75% of the patients (67/89) there was no change in visual acuity over time, while 17% (15/89) showed a one- or two-line decrease, and in 8% (7/89) vision dropped more than two lines. Of those patients who had greater than or equal to 20/40, 88% (56/64) who had a posttreatment visual acuity of 20/20 showed no change at the final evaluation, but only 50% (9/18) of those whose posttreatment vision was between 20/25 and 20/40 were stable. In those patients who needed part-time occlusion (PTO) to maintain equal visual acuity, their stability appeared to be the same as the vision of those whose vision was maintained without PTO.