Comment in:

Ophthalmologica. 2004 May-Jun;218(3):219; author reply 220.

Comparison of three techniques for repair of involutional lower lid entropion: a three-year follow-up study.

Section of Ophthalmology, Department of Neural Sciences and Vision, University of Genoa, Italy. altieri.ferraris@tin.it

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to quantify the efficacy of three different surgical techniques for entropion repair in a 3-year follow-up study: (1) the Fox procedure, (2) everting sutures and (3) a modified technique of lower lid retractor plication. METHODS: We included in our study 32 eyelids of 32 consecutive patients with involutional lower lid entropion; 10 lids underwent the Fox procedure, 13 the everting sutures and 9 the modified retractor plication. We evaluated the pre- and postoperative horizontal lid laxity (HLL), the pre- and postoperative lower lid excursion (LLE) and the number of recurrences in each patient group. Statistical analysis was performed with the non-parametric Mann-Whitney test and the exact Fisher's test where appropriate. RESULTS: Only the modified retractor plication technique showed statistically significant differences in HLL and LLE (p < 0.05). In the group treated with this technique, there was a lower incidence of entropion recurrence (p < 0.05). The everting suture technique showed a statistically significant improvement of the LLE only (p < 0.05). The Fox procedure did not show any statistically significant improvement of the studied parameters. CONCLUSIONS: The modified retractor plication technique gave the best results in terms of improvement of HLL and LLE and a lower incidence of entropion recurrence compared to the two other techniques studied. Copyright 2003 S. Karger AG, Basel

PMID: 12792132 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]