This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.
Study finds increasing patching can improve visual acuity in children with amblyopia
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
Researchers found that children with amblyopia who ceased improving with 2 hours of patching per day resumed increases in visual acuity when patching was extended to 6 hours per day.
The Pediatric Eye Disease Investigator Group evaluated 168 children between the ages of 3 and 8 who had stable residual amblyopia, between 20/32 and 20/160, after 2 hours of daily patching for at least 12 weeks, according to the study abstract. The children were randomly assigned to continue with 2 hours of patching daily or to increase patching to 6 hours, for a course of 10 weeks.
According to the study results, the children in the 2-hour group improved an average of 0.5 lines, and those in the 6-hour group improved an average of 1.2 lines. Forty percent of children patched for 6 hours and 18% of those patched for 2 hours improved 2 or more lines (P = 0.003).
“Amblyopia treatment may begin with spectacles alone, followed by a choice of low-dose patching, weekend atropine or a Bangerter filter,” the authors concluded. “If significant amblyopia persists, we now know that it is reasonable to increase the dose of patching therapy.”
Collapse
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts