A comparative study of the efficacy of part time occlusion and full time occlusion therapy in moderate and severe Amblyopia in children and factors influencing the outcome

Abstract

Aims: A comparative study of the efficacy of full time occlusion and part time occlusion therapy in moderate and severe Amblyopia, to establish the dose-response relationship between occlusion therapy and improvement in visual acuity, and how this is modified by patient characteristics. Methods: This is a prospective study including 44 amblyopic patients aged 5-10 years, who were initially given one month of spectacle correction. Four patients lost to follow up and remaining 24 patients were prescribed part time occlusion while 16 patients were given full time occlusion. Subsequently they were followed at 1 week, 2 week, 4 week, 8 week and 12 week intervals. Result: The mean age of study population was 7.2±1.8 years with 60% male and 40% of female. In part occlusion therapy average line of improvement was 1.08±0.51 lines while in full time occlusion therapy improvement was 1.25±0.70 lines and the difference among these groups was not statistically significant (p value 0.53). Conclusion: Part time occlusion is comparable to full-time occlusion in effectiveness of treatment in moderate and severe Amblyopia. Prescribing fewer hours of daily patching may ease the implementation of patching therapy and monitoring of compliance for parents. Key words: Amblyopia, Occlusion therapy, Full-time occlusion, Part-time occlusion