Duane's syndrome
Duane's syndrome is a rare congenital abnormality of the eye muscles characterized by some or all of the following symptoms:
- Limitation of abduction of the affected eye
- Some (but to a lesser extent) limitation of adduction of the same eye
- Retraction of the eyeball into the socket on adduction, together with narrowing of the palpebral fissure (i.e. closing of the eye)
- Widening of the palpebral fissure on attempted abduction
- Poor convergence of the eyes
- The face may turn to the side of the affected eye to compensate for the movement limitations of the eye(s), and to maintain binocular vision.
There are two classification systems used to diagnose and describe Duane's syndrome. They are
- Brown's Classification (1950), and
- Huber's Classification (1974).
Duane's syndrome is usually attributed to failure of the eye muscles involved to operate as normally expected - with the effect that some of the eye muscles to contract when they should be relaxed while other eye muscles not to contract when they should.
Duane's syndrome is named after American Ophthalmologist, Alexander Duane (1858 - 1926).
More about Ophthalmology:
This section includes short definitions
of many diseases, disorders, and conditions of the eyes and visual system.
For definitions of other terms in this category, choose from the list
to the left (but note that this is not a complete/exhaustive list).
Other related pages include
- A diagram of the eye
- Definitions and descriptions of the parts of the eye
- A concise description of the human retina
- Definitions of parts of the retina
- Clinical and surgical procedures re. eyes and human visual system
For further information see also our pages of books about ophthalmology.
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