Efficiency of occlusion therapy for management of amblyopia in older children.
OBJECTIVE
To analyse results of full time occlusion therapy for amblyopia in children older than 6 years.


METHODS
This was a retrospective consecutive case series analysis of children treated for amblyopia at a tertiary care center. All children received full time occlusion (FTO) for the dominant eye.


RESULTS
Eighty-eight children older than 6 years at the time of initiation of therapy were included. Age at initiation of therapy ranged from 6 to 20 years (9.45 +/- 3.11 years). Forty-two children (47.7%) had strabismic amblyopia, 37 (42.0%) had anisometropic amblyopia and 9 (10.2%) had a combination of strabismic and anisometropic amblyopia. Eighty out of 88 eyes (90.0%) had improvement in visual acuity following FTO. Visual acuity (VA) improved from 0.82 +/- 0.34 at presentation to 0.42 +/- 0.34 (P < 0.001) after FTO. In children with strabismic amblyopia, VA improved from 0.81 +/- 0.42 to 0.42 +/- 0.39 (P <0.001). In children with anisometropic amblyopia, visual acuity of the amblyopic eye improved fron 0.82 +/- 0.24 to 0.36 +/- 0.29 (P< 0.001) following FTO. Out of 13 children older than 12 years, only 6 children (46.1%) had improvement in VA. Mean follow-up after complete stoppage of occlusion was 8.37 +/- 1.78 months.


CONCLUSIONS
Occlusion therapy yields favorable results in strabismic and/or anisometropic amblyopia, even when initiated for the first time after 6 years of age. After 12 years of age, some children may still respond to occlusion of the dominant eye.
Brar
Gagandeep S
GS
Department of Ophthalmology, Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh, Punjab, India. eyepgi@sify.com
Bandyopadhyay
Supratik
S
Kaushik
Sushmita
S
Raj
Surishti
S
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000550:Amblyopia / Q000150:complications / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000628:therapy*; D002648:Child; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012683:Sensory Deprivation; D013285:Strabismus / Q000150:complications; D013997:Time Factors; D016896:Treatment Outcome; D014792:Visual Acuity