Eye care practitioners now have some new statistics that reveal rates of strabismus and its surgical corrections. In a recent retrospective analysis, researchers evaluated electronic health record data from patients in the American Academy of Ophthalmology’s Intelligent Research in Sight registry over a four-year period. Results told the story of a fairly uncommon disorder.

Of the 30,827,185 patient records in the study, just 2.75% had a strabismus diagnosis. Additionally, about one in 750 total patients (or one in 20 with a strabismus diagnosis) received strabismus surgery and 6.72% had reoperations during the first year after the initial procedure, although this number was lower (3.95%) for patients between six and nine years of age and higher (11.5%) for patients older than 65.

“Strabismus is an uncommonly reported diagnosis in ophthalmologic practice,” the study concluded. “‘Big’ data from clinical data registries represent real-world care that can be used to develop benchmarks for clinical outcomes and to identify areas for practice improvement and training program design.”