Amblyopia Treatment

Abstract

Purpose: to compare patching and atropine as treatments for moderate amblyopia in children 3 to < 7 years old Material and methods: prospective study of two groups of patients treated with patching or atropine (each group of 30 patients). The patients were from 3 to 7 years old and the visual acuity was measured with E test. The groups consisted of patients with strabismic and /or anisometropic amblyopia. The visual acuity of the amblyopic eye was -20/40 to 20/100. The visual acuity of sound eye was ->- 20/40. Inter eye acuity difference >- 3 lines. The visit schedule for the first 6 months was on 5 weeks, 17 weeks, 26 weeks, and afterwards on every 6 months. Results: Patient characteristics: 47% female. Cause of amblyopia: strabismus 38%, anisometropia 37% and combine –mechanism 24%. 26% received previous treatment for amblyopia. The other results of the study will be discussed further in the paper. Conclusions: both patching and atropine are effective treatments for moderate amblyopia in children 3 to 7 years of age. Patching produces more rapid improvement and possibly slightly better outcome. Atropine has easier administration. Both treatments were well tolerated.