Nystagmus in infancy and childhood: characteristics and evidence for treatment.

PURPOSE: To discuss the common characteristics of infants and children with nystagmus and review treatments and their evidence.

METHODS

The NEI-sponsored classification of eye movement abnormalities and strabismus and a PubMed search for papers from 1995 through 2005 on interventions for Infantile Nystagmus Syndrome (INS) are reviewed.

RESULTS

The review of treatments revealed 18 papers on surgical or pharmacological interventions and six papers describing other interventions. There is only one randomized controlled trial, with all the other studies being uncontrolled trials/case series.

CONCLUSIONS

Previous science and studies on interventions for nystagmus in infancy and childhood have laid an important foundation for future work in this field, which should include a randomized clinical trial.