Surgery related to the correction of hypertelorism.

The importance of skeletal reduction of the interorbital distance in the treatment of patients with teleorbitism is now well recognized. In spite of this, results of surgery are not always as good as one would hope. For this there are two reasons: (1) reduction of the interorbital distance may be followed by deformities such as canthal drift, enophthalmus, pseudoptosis, and so forth; and (2) hypertelorism is frequently associated with a variety of other malformations that become more conspicuous after reduction of the interorbital distance. In this paper attention is focused on the mechanisms responsible for the appearance of new stigmata, on their prevention, and also on the treatment of the associated malformations.