Institutional development · Research, innovation and assessment · Japan
Kyoto University study of 116,059 patients finds low repeat-surgery rates for strabismus
Kyoto University researchers analysed Japanese national data on strabismus surgery from 2011 to 2020, finding a second surgery peak at ages 70-74 and a three-year reoperation rate of 7.4%.
Why it matters: Ophthalmology researchers and clinicians treating strabismus in children and older adults gain national figures on reoperation risk by age and condition type.
A Kyoto University group from the Graduate School of Medicine and the university's institute for liberal arts and sciences studied 116,059 strabismus surgery patients in Japan between 2011 and 2020, using the NDB, Japan's anonymised national medical insurance database.
The university said patient numbers peaked at ages 5 to 9, with a second peak at ages 70 to 74.
According to the university, overall reoperation rates were 4.0% at one year and 7.4% at three years, lowest in children and rising with age, while vertical-torsional strabismus, common in older people, had the highest three-year rate at 12.1%.
The findings were published online in the British Journal of Ophthalmology on 11 October 2026.
Editor’s view
Scott James, Research and Innovation Editor
The study gives patients of all ages considering strabismus surgery, and the clinicians advising them, national figures on reoperation risk; the university says the results, together with the group's earlier work on serious complications, support the safety and effectiveness of the procedure.
