Anisometropia and isoametropia associated with microstrabismus: effectiveness of late anti-amblyopia treatment

Purpose: Outcomes Research Study on patients suffering from anisometropia or isoametropia associated with amblyopia and microstrabismus to show the impact of late occlusion treatment on therapeutic prognosis. Materials and methods: Enrollment of all the eligible patients presenting to recruiting centers at the Department of Pediatric Ophthalmology and Strabismus - Ophthalmological Clinic - Policlinico Umberto I - Rome. At baseline, all patients will undergo an opthalmologic evaluation. Recruited patients will be followed for a 2-year period. Our test group was composed of 31 patients, 11 with bilateral and 20 with monolateral amblyopia, totalling 42 amblyopic eyes, and it was assessed – always by the same examiner – with the help of the following orthoptic examinations: Wirt test, Irvine-Jampolsky test (4 dioptre fixation task), Visuscope, Cover Test, Bagolini striated glasses, and Worth lights test. We assessed pre-post treatment variations observed in the overall group of amblyopic eyes, regardless of the differences between RE and LE. Outcomes: Of the 31 children, 58.1% were males and 41.9% female, average age between 6 and 14 years. Of the 42 amblyopic eyes, after daily occlusion of 8 hours ± 2.30 SD, we recorded an improvement of 71.4%, and visual acuity increased from an average of 0.4 LogMAR to 0.1 LogMAR. Conclusion: Late anti-amblyopic occlusion treatment proved effective in the long term for children 6 to 12 years, specifically regarding visual acuity, fixation, stereopsis, and binocular collaboration in patients suffering from anisometropia or isoametropia and microstrabismus.