Abstract
Purpose: :
To investigate the effect and compliance of patching the good eye of children diagnosed with anisometropic amblyopia by objectively monitoring occlusion and to establish whether there is a correlation between dose–effect and improvement of visual function.
Methods: :
Twenty–two newly diagnosed children aged 3–8 years (mean age 5.7 years) were randomly allocated into three treatment groups with a prescription of 6 hours (n=7), 3 hours (n=8) and 0 hours (n=7) occlusion. Patching was monitored using a thermos–sensitive occlusion dose monitor. All patients were monitored for twelve weeks. The visual acuity was assessed every three weeks using LogMAR visual acuity.
Results: :
In the 6–hour group the average ODM patching time was 3.11 hours (53.1% compliance). In the 3–hour group the average ODM patching time was 1.36 hours (41.6% compliance). The mean percentage visual improvement in the 6–hour was 43.80 percent, 3–hour group 69.14 percent and 41.87 percent in the 0–hour group. The patching times did not significantly correlate with the visual improvement (p=0.212), overall especially in the longer hour group.
Conclusions: :
The lack of correlation of the patching time and visual improvement in anisometropic amblyopia is suggestive that different treatment modalities should be reconsidered compared to the earlier work of the strabismic and mixed amblyopes showing a strong dose–effect correlation. It may be important to separate anisometropic and strabismic amblyopia in studies.
Keywords: amblyopia • visual acuity