Prevalence of Amblyopia and Strabismus in Young Singaporean Chinese Children

Abstract

PURPOSE. To determine the prevalence of amblyopia and strabismus in young Singaporean Chinese children. METHODS. Enrolled in the study were 3009 Singaporean children, aged 6 to 72 months. All underwent complete eye examinations and cycloplegic refraction. Visual acuity (VA) was measured with a logMAR chart when possible and the Sheridan-Gardner test when not. Strabismus was defined as any manifest tropia. Unilateral amblyopia was defined as a 2-line difference between eyes with VA < 20/30 in the worse eye and with coexisting anisometropia (> or =1.00 D for hyperopia, > or =3.00 D for myopia, and > or =1.50 D for astigmatism), strabismus, or past or present visual axis obstruction. Bilateral amblyopia was defined as VA in both eyes <20/40 (in children 48-72 months) and <20/50 (<48 months), with coexisting hyperopia > or =4.00 D, myopia < or = -6.00 D, and astigmatism > or =2.50 D, or past or present visual axis obstruction. RESULTS. The amblyopia prevalence in children aged 30 to 72 months was 1.19% (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.73-1.83) with no age (P = 0.37) or sex (P = 0.22) differences. Unilateral amblyopia (0.83%) was twice as frequent as bilateral amblyopia (0.36%). The most frequent causes of amblyopia were refractive error (85%) and strabismus (15%); anisometropic astigmatism >1.50 D (42%) and isometropic astigmatism >2.50 D (29%) were frequent refractive errors. The prevalence of strabismus in children aged 6 to 72 months was 0.80% (95% CI, 0.51-1.19), with no sex (P = 0.52) or age (P = 0.08) effects. The exotropia-esotropia ratio was 7:1, with most exotropia being intermittent (63%). Of children with amblyopia, 15.0% had strabismus, whereas 12.5% of children with strabismus had amblyopia. CONCLUSIONS. The prevalence of amblyopia was similar, whereas the prevalence of strabismus was lower than in other populations.

Study of Concomitant Strabismus amongstthe EthnicPopulation of Manipur.

“…This was comparable to the (12) who retrospectively reviewed the case file of old children presenting for the first time in the Singapore National Eye centre and KK Women and Children Hospital with horizontal concomitant strabismus and found higher prevalence of exotropia than esotropia by ratio of 7:1. They also found higher prevalence of intermittent exotropia followed by constant exotropia.…”

“…Out of 72 strabismus patients a total of 60 patients diagnosed with concomitant strabismus were included in this study, of which only 48 patients participated and gave consent for this study, the remaining 7 were too young for assessment, other 5 patients were unwilling to take part in assessment and the rest 12 …”

Refractive Errors in School-age Children in Qazvin, Iran

“…In studies on Singaporean 30 to 72-month old children, 7-year-old children in the United Kingdom and Australian children aged 6 years; the prevalence of amblyopia was 1.19%, 3.6% and 0.7%, respectively (54)(55)(56). The reported prevalence of amblyopia in a questionnaire-based study on Japanese children aged between 1.5 and 12 years was between 0% to 0.2% and this amount in Korean children aged 3 to 5 years was 0.4% of the 43% who responded (57)(58)(59).…”

Subfoveal fluid in healthy full-term newborns observed by handheld spectral domain optical coherence tomography

“…Myopia occurs at a similar rate (15% to 22.2%) in adult populations [29][30][31][32][33][34] . Other ocular diseases occur at a lower rate in the general population including amblyopia (0.8-3%) 30,[35][36][37] and strabismus (0.8-3.3%) 30,35,36,38 . Clinically significant visual acuity deficit is therefore an unlikely consequence of transient subfoveal fluid just after birth.…”