Faculty Bibliography

We used a blunt irrigating cannula to infuse tetracaine 0.5% solution into the posterior sub-Tenon's space in 26 consecutive patients undergoing strabismus surgery under local anesthesia. All patients were sedated with combinations of fentanyl citrate and either propofol or midazolam. The results suggest that this technique is a safe and effective method of performing strabismus surgery under local anesthesia

We assessed the clinical utility of objectively measured acuity using visual-evoked potentials. The technique was first standardized in normal emmetropic subjects and then applied to uncorrected myopic subjects. We found that visual-evoked potential acuity could accurately indicate Snellen acuity in emmetropia and corrected myopia; however, the two measures were highly correlated only in those uncorrected myopic subjects with visual acuities of 20/100 or better. In subjects with poorer than 20/200 uncorrected visual acuity caused by myopia, estimates of visual-evoked potential acuity could not be obtained. The correlation between these two measures of visual acuity was also lower in patients with decreased Snellen acuity attributable to retinal or ocular disease. We found that patients with unexplainable claims of decreased visual acuity could be diagnosed as having functional visual loss based on objective visual-evoked potential acuities