Duane syndrome is a congenital rare type of strabismus most commonly characterized by the inability of the eye to move outward.

The syndrome was first described by ophthalmologists Jakob Stilling (1887) and Siegmund Türk (1896), and subsequently named after Alexander Duane, who discussed the disorder in more detail in 1905.

[6] This view is supported by the earlier work of Hotchkiss et al. who reported on the autopsy findings of two patients with Duane's syndrome.

They also noticed mechanical factors and considered them secondary to loss of innervation: During corrective surgery fibrous attachments have been found connecting the horizontal recti and the orbital walls and fibrosis of the lateral rectus has been confirmed by biopsy.

[5][10] In the clinical setting, the principal difficulties in differential diagnosis arise as a consequence of the very early age at which patients with this condition first present.

Duane syndrome cannot be cured, as the "missing" cranial nerve cannot be replaced, and traditionally there has been no expectation that surgery will result in any increase in the range of eye movement.