Abstract
Purpose :
Patients with strabismic amblyopia referred to surgical treatment of strabismus often show disturbed visual fixation. The purpose of the present study was to investigate fixation stability before and after surgical treatment of strabismus and the effects of biofeedback fixation training on fixation stability of amblyopic adult eyes.
Methods :
Participants were 12 patients with strabismus (mean age = 29.6 ± 8.5 years; 6 females) and 12 healthy volunteers (mean age = 23.8 ± 1.5 years; 9 females). The protocol included ophthalmological and microperimetric follow-ups. Biofeedback fixation training (MAIA; CenterVue, Padova, Italy) was delivered monocularly to the amblyopic eye once per week for six months. Trained retinal locus was selected as either the spontaneous preferential retinal locus or as a fixation point closer to the anatomical fovea after the surgical treatment of strabismus. Group differences were evaluated using ANOVA. Paired comparisons between amblyopic, fellow, and control eyes were performed using Bonferroni post-hoc analyses.
Results :
Baseline measurements showed significantly altered fixation stability (p < 0.001) in amblyopic eyes compared to control eyes. Fixation stability did not significantly change after the surgical treatment of strabismus (p = 0.622). On the contrast, biofeedback fixation training applied to operated amblyopic eyes resulted in more stable fixation for all four subjects trained so far with 50% of average improvement.
Conclusions :
Fixation stability is impaired in amblyopic adult eyes, also after the surgical treatment of strabismus. The present report highlights the beneficial use of biofeedback fixation training as a therapeutic option to improve fixation stability in amblyopic eyes after the surgical treatment of strabismus. Alternatively, this method could be associated with standardized treatments to improve monocular and binocular vision in patients with amblyopia as an attempt to enhance the treatment effect.
This is a 2021 ARVO Annual Meeting abstract.