Anisometropic Amblyopia and Its Treatment

Efficacy of amblyopia therapy initiated after 9 years of age

“…[3][4][5][6][7][8][9] However, the age beyond which treatment is ineffective is still controversial. Oliver et al 5 also found that children older than 8 years who complied with the treatment showed a marked improvement in their visual acuity, almost as good as that in younger children.…”

“…1 Many factors are related to the response to amblyopia therapy. These are the initial visual acuity of the amblyopia, [2][3][4][5] the age of the initial therapy, [3][4][5][6][7][8][9] the type of amblyogenic stimulus (anisometropia, strabismus, or deprivation), [2][3][4][5]9 the duration of amblyopia therapy, 5 the method of amblyopia therapy, 10,11 and the level of compliance. [4][5][6]12 Among them, the single factor that was most clearly related to a successful outcome was the age at commencement of therapy.…”

“…3 Regarding this age factor, there have been several reports with conflicting results. [3][4][5][6][7][8][9] The purpose of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of amblyopia therapy initiated after 9 years of age, one of the oldest patient groups ever reported.…”

Successful Amblyopia Therapy Initiated After Age 7 Years<subtitle>Compliance Cures</subtitle>

“…Only children with anisometropic amblyopia are reported to respond to therapy at later ages. In 1977, Hedgpeth and Sullivan 14 found that anisometropic amblyopia could be successfully treated at least until the age of 12 years (their Tables 1 and 2). In 1992, Wick et al 1 described 19 patients older than 6 years and found that anisometropic amblyopia was amenable to treatment at any age (at least to age 49 years) (their Table 1).…”

“…HE RESPONSE to amblyopia therapy is thought to be related to (1) type of amblyogenic stimulus (anisometropia, strabismus, or deprivation), [1][2][3][4] (2) initial depth of amblyopia, [3][4][5] (3) age at initiation of therapy (years), 1,2,[4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16] (4) duration of amblyopia therapy (initial and maintenance for months to years), [6][7][8] (5) method of amblyopia therapy (penalization [complete or partial, ie, with or without a refractive lens creating a blur] [17][18][19] or occlusion [fulltime or part-time, with an occlusive contact lens 20 or with a standard patch]), and (6) compliance (despite social and psychological factors). 2,5,6,[21][22][23][24] In 1998, Flynn et al 4 reviewed extensively the results of amblyopia therapy by using the pooled data from 961 patients described in 23 published studies between 1965 and 1994.…”