Hot topics in treatment of intermittent exotropia

Intermittent exotropia is the most common type of exotropia, and also is one of the most difficult types of strabismus to deal with. Surgery is the main choice of treatment and non-surgical treatment is used only under certain indications. Long-term outcomes of the surgery for intermittent exotropia are related to many factors, such as age, course of the disease, perceptual state of visual cortex, timing of surgery, types of intermittent exotropia, the surgical methods, preoperative measurements of exodeviations, target angle of surgery, postoperative treatment of overcorrection or undercorrection, and so on. It is significant to pay attention to these issues to improve success rate of the surgeries. In this paper, recent progress of clinical studies of intermittent exotropia were reviewed to arouse the attentions of domestic ophthalmologist to the standardization of diagnosis and treatment of intermittent exotropia.