Average recovery time from delayed visual maturation.

Abstract

The research aimed to investigate the average age of recovery in infants with delayed visual maturation (DVM). DVM is diagnosed retrospectively and there are currently no management guidelines. This study gives an evidence-based recovery time which can help clinicians to appropriately reassure anxious parents about DVM prognosis. This research is significant as this is the largest participant study about DVM to date. This is a retrospective service evaluation of 50 infants with DVM presenting to St James University Hospital between 2012 and 2017. The DVM was classified into either type I or type II. Several key variables were recorded including: patient gender, age at recovery, type of DVM and whether Electrodiagnostic testing was used. STATA analysis showed that the average age of recovery for type I and type II DVM was 6.708 and 13.464months, respectively. A multivariable linear regression adjusted for gender as a confounder. The average age of recovery was 6.179months longer for infants with type II DVM which is a statistically significant difference (95% CI: 3.214-9.143, P value: < 0.001). This research supports the hypothesis that the age of recovery in type I DVM is significantly shorter than type II when adjusted for gender. The main limitation is that recovery age is recorded from when the infants attended clinic, however; their vision could have recovered prior to this. In the future, additional multi-centre research needs to be conducted looking at larger patient samples to allow for further sub-categorisation of DVM types.