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

Nam, Hoon; Roh, Young Bae

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.