Effectiveness of binocularity-stimulating treatment in children with residual amblyopia following occlusion

Abstract

Background To evaluate the effectiveness of binocularity-stimulating treatment in children with residual amblyopia following occlusion therapy for more than 6months.

Methods Of patients with amblyopia caused by anisometropia and/or strabismus, patients with residual amblyopia following more than 6months of occlusion therapy were included. Subjects underwent one of the following types of binocularity-stimulating therapy: Bangerter foil (BF), head-mounted display (HMD) game, or BF/HMD combination (BF + HMD). Factors including age, sex, types of amblyopia, visual acuity, and duration of treatment were investigated. Baseline and final (after at least 2months of treatment) visual acuity were also compared.

Results Twenty-two patients with a mean age of 8.7 ± 1.3years were included. Seven patients had anisometropic amblyopia, 8 patients had strabismic amblyopia, and 7 patients had combined amblyopia. After 4.4 ± 1.8months of treatment, logarithm of the minimum angle of resolution (logMAR) visual acuity in the amblyopic eye improved from 0.22 ± 0.20 to 0.18 ± 0.15. Five of 22 patients (22.7%) gained more than 0.2 logMAR, including 1 of 10 patients (10.0%) in the BF group, 2 of 7 patients (28.6%) in the HMD group, and 2 of 5 patients (40.0%) in the BF + HMD group. No significant differences in clinical characteristics were identified among the three groups.

Conclusions Binocularity-stimulating therapy is somewhat beneficial in children with residual amblyopia and might be attempted when children no longer benefit from sufficient long-term period of occlusion therapy.