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Surgeon: Photoscreening effective as screening modality
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WASHINGTON — Photoscreening is an effective modality to identify children with amblyogenic factors, according to Sean Donahue, MD, PhD.
“Photoscreening is a good first-generation instrument for vision screening, but there are inadequacies in the method of accuracy,” Dr. Donahue said here at the American Association for Pediatric Ophthalmology and Strabismus meeting.
Currently photoscreening is a tool for identifying amblyogenic factors in children that may lead to amblyopia, he said.
“Photoscreening is an excellent tool for picking up high levels of astigmatism and myopia, but the sensitivity is not as good for detecting low levels of these errors in children,” Dr. Donahue said. Photoscreening also falls short in detecting hyperopia, he said.
“Anisometropia and myopia are well detected, but hypermetropia is not clearly identified,” Dr. Donahue said. Improving the sensitivity of photoscreeners to pick up the nuances of amblyopia will help to control under-referrals and over-referrals in future testing.
“Photoscreening is in its infancy,” Dr. Donahue said. “Future modalities may offer improvement with automated testing, high resolution, digital images, stricter referral criteria and better sensitivity.”