The Analysis of Improvement of Visual Acuity by Occlusion Therapy in Strabismic Amblyopia

ABSTRACT

In an attempt to assess the effect of occlusion to improvement of visual acuity, we analyzed data from 55 patients with strabismic amblyopia(mean; 5.5 years old) who received strabismus surgery with occlusion(combined therapy) or surgery only. The results were as follows 1. The younger the patients at onset, the better the visual acuity obtained. The improvement in visual acuity was higher in 27 of 32 cases(84.4%) with the combined therapy than in 5 of 18 cases(27.8%) who underwent surgery only, and the difference between those two groups was significant statistically(p<0.05). 2. In exotropes, improvement of visual acuity was shown in 19 of 32 cases(59.3%) and there was no significant difference in the improvement of visual acuity between the intermittent and constant types. 3. In 23 esotropes, 18 patients(78.3%) showed the improvement of visual acuity; 13 of 16 cases in infantile esotropia and all of 7 cases in acquired one. 4. In the final results of surgery, the alignment was satisfactory in 50 of 55 cases(90.9%), showing less than 10 prism diopters. From the results of our study, we confirmed that the occlusion during pre-and postoperative periods is the effective therapy to treat amblyopia in the children with strabismic amblyopia, and its importance was reported.