ABSTRACT
This case highlights the importance of histopathological examination in all cases of choristoma undergoing excision.
ABSTRACT
Childhood blindness is one of the priority targets of Vision 2020—Right To Sight due to its impact on the psychological and social growth of the child. An extensive search was performed to locate research papers on childhood blindness prevalence and its causes in the community based and blind schools, respectively, conducted from 1990 onward up to the present. Cross references were also manually searched along with expert consultation to enlarge the reference data. A total of five community-based studies on the prevalence including two refractive error studies conducted all over India in children less than 16 years were found. The causes of childhood blindness from the available blind school studies revealed that causes of childhood blindness have mainly shifted from corneal causes to whole globe abnormalities. This article highlights that though with the availability of proper healthcare facilities, the trend is changing for the causes but still a lot of effort in the form of timely neonatal eye care facilities, pediatric surgical services and proper refraction strategies is required.
ABSTRACT
Purpose: In India, teachers screen middle school children using the 6/9 Snellen's optotype. Recently, the National Program for Control of Blindness included primary school students also. The present cross-sectional study was planned to assess the inclusion of primary school students. Compliance to spectacles was ascertained after 6 months follow-up. Methods: Randomly selected 23 Government primary schools. A total of 30 teachers were nominated and given hands-on training in vision screening and recording formats. Teachers conducted vision screening of primary school students of their respective schools using the 6/12 Snellen's chart and referred students with subnormal vision to optometrist. Optometrist also validated the screening done by teachers. Optometrist screened the vision of 5% randomly selected children screened by teachers as having normal vision. Descriptive statistics used STATA version 13.0. Results: A total of 6056 students screened by the teachers. Sensitivity and specificity of teacher screening were 92.3% (confidence interval [CI] 88.6–95.0) and 72.6% (CI 68.2–76.6)), respectively. About 277 students underwent refraction and 186 prescribed spectacles. The prevalence of myopia, hypermetropia, and astigmatism is 2.5% (2.1–2.9), 0.6% (0.4–0.8), and 1.3% (1.0–1.6), respectively. Compliance to spectacles usage is 36%. Conclusion: Burden of refractive error in primary school is very low. Trained teachers can identify children with subnormal vision, but the false-positive rate is very high. Compliance to spectacle use among primary school children is also less. Vision screening by teachers prioritized in secondary schools and preschool screening should be done by more skilled eye care workers preferably optometrist.