Abstract
The eye has been shortened surgically. There has been no attempt to lengthen it by surgical means. Mueller 1 reported a complicated operation for shortening the axis, by first performing a Kroenlein and then removing an eliptical segment of sclera from the exposed temporal side, 20 mm long and 8 mm to 10 mm wide, placing 5 scleral sutures and then puncturing the choroid before tying them to avoid injury. The object was the cure of detached retina, on the assumption of disproportion of the shrinking retina and the ocular shell. Recently. Lindner 2 proposed cutting the superior rectus muscle, excising an eliptical piece of sclera, the long axis equatorially, stitching the scleral wound so as to avoid injuring the choroid and sewing the severed muscle and conjunctiva back in place; later, doing the same thing below, and in turn, the two sides. In other words, 4 stages. Barkan 3 recently exhibited a moving picture of an operation where a strip of sclera was removed equatorially, after first severing the 4 recti muscles. This operation, most formidable, required over 4 hours to perform.
The method I am presenting is based on the principle that if a body with a given content, is shortened equatorially, it must expand axially; and vice versa. It seems not to be necessary to excise, for example, a strip of sclera the entire length of the axis of the eye when one wishes to lengthen the eye by cutting out segments from the sclera longitudinally. In a dog's eye, which closely approximates the size and shape of the human eye, if one excises an eliptical segment of sclera 9 mm long and 1.5 mm wide from 4 opposite sides of the eye and brings the edges together by means of 3 sutures each, the eye will be lengthened approximately 2.5 mm to 3.0 mm.
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