Purpose
In a previous study, we reported that amblyopic eyes with high myopia had significantly thicker minimum and average foveas but thinner inner and outer maculae compared to sound eyes. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether amblyopia treatment affected macular thickness in amblyopic eyes with high myopia.
Methods
Seventeen amblyopic children were recruited (range of VA in the amblyopic eye: 20/80 to 20/400) and treated with 16 weeks of refractive correction followed by 16 weeks of patching. Macular thickness (measured with Stratus OCT), best-corrected VA and refraction were measured both before and after amblyopia treatment. Paired t-test was performed to compare macular thickness of the amblyopic eye before and after amblyopia treatment. Spearman correlation was used to test the relationships between macular thickness change and VA improvement in amblyopic eyes. For multiple comparisons and correlations among the ten OCT parameters, Bonferroni’s correction was applied with a resultant significance level of P <0.005.
Results
Mean (±SD) baseline VA in the amblyopic eye was 0.96±0.27 logMAR and improved to 0.71±0.30 after amblyopia treatment (P<0.0001). Table 1 shows the macular thickness measurements before and after amblyopia treatment. No statistically significant difference was identified in macular thickness before and after treatment although there was a trend toward decreasing minimum and average foveal thickness after treatment. No correlation was found between macular thickness change and VA improvement.
Conclusions
Amblyopia treatment improved VA in myopic amblyopic eyes, but anomalies in macular thickness of these eyes remained. These findings suggest that VA improvement in myopic amblyopic eyes is not due to macular thickness changes.
Keywords: 417 amblyopia •
585 macula/fovea •
605 myopia