The relationship between stereopsis and visual acuity after occlusion therapy for amblyopia☆
Section snippets
Patient data
In this retrospective study, we reviewed the charts of 61 consecutive children ages 3.5 to 8 years who met our inclusion criteria. They presented between 1994 and 2001 at the Jules Stein Eye Institute of University of California Los Angeles and were diagnosed with amblyopia. Amblyopia was defined as a difference in vision of 2 lines or greater with the VA of the amblyopic eye less than 20/30 and due to any combination of anisometropia, small-angle strabismus (≤8 prism diopters [PD]), and
Results
Of the 61 patients, 34 were male. Ages ranged from 3.5 to 8 years, with a mean of 5.1. The groups did not significantly differ in mean age. Patient-related data, including diagnoses of the 3 groups, are listed in Table 1.
The mean and standard deviation for follow-up time of all patients were 52.3 (±26.4) weeks (range = 13–192). Mean time intervals from the previous visit to the next visit for all patients were as follows: visit 1 to visit 2, 7.0 (±5.7) weeks; visit 2 to visit 3, 9.2 (±7.3)
Discussion
Stereopsis is that unique quality of binocular vision that enables us to perceive depth in visual space. During normal development, stereopsis is first measurable in those 3 to 5 months old and rapidly matures to nearly adult levels during the first 12 to 24 months of life. It arises from horizontal retinal image disparity between the foveae or other corresponding retinal points. Differing amounts of such disparity give rise to differing sensations of depth.10
Numerous studies exist concerning
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2018, Vision ResearchCitation Excerpt :In clinical practice, amblyopia is treated as a monocular disorder, with occlusion or penalization of the fellow eye as the most popular treatment choice (Loudon & Simonsz, 2005). Although such monocular treatments can recover visual acuity in the amblyopic eye for about 2/3 of the patients and improve stereoacuity to some degree (Group PEDI, 2005; Lee & Isenberg, 2003), several other visual functions remain deficient in clinically treated amblyopia (defined as 20/20 vision in the amblyopic eye following treatment), including contrast sensitivity at high spatial frequencies (Bradley & Freeman, 1981; Ciuffreda et al., 1991; Huang et al., 2007; Yang, Wu, Tian, & Wu, 1991) and eye–hand coordination (Suttle, Melmoth, Finlay, Sloper, & Grant, 2011). These existing results suggest that traditional treatments focusing on monocular deficits in the amblyopic eye cannot fully restore deficient monocular and binocular functions.
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Manuscript no. 220424.
This study was supported in part by a Research to Prevent Blindness Senior Scientific Investigator Award (SJI), New York, New York.