Protective Effect of Amblyopia on Age-Related Macular Degeneration

Abstract

Our aim was to evaluate whether patients with AMD and co-occurrent amblyopia are more likely to have both diseases diagnosed on the ipsilateral or on the contralateral side in a large Austrian database. Retrospective cross-sectional study METHODS: Setting: Institutional practice. Medical records of all patients who visited the Department of Ophthalmology of the Medical University Graz between December 1996 and June 2021 were searched for the co-occurrence of AMD and amblyopia. Patients with AMD diagnosed on one eye side were used for further analysis. Spectral-domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT) images were analyzed to confirm the lateral asymmetry of AMD. 327 443 patients were screened for the co-occurrence of AMD and amblyopia. 8 742 patients had AMD diagnosed on one eye side and 5 051 patients had unilateral amblyopia. 163 patients were found to have AMD diagnosed on one side and unilateral amblyopia in combination. Out of these, 126 patients had AMD and amblyopia on contralateral sides and 37 had AMD and amblyopia on the ipsilateral side (p<0.001). Less amblyopic patients had AMD diagnosed on the amblyopic eye compared to the non-amblyopic eye. In cases of lateral asymmetry, the non-amblyopic eye is more likely to have the more advanced form of AMD.