Part-Time Occlusion Therapy for Anisometropic Amblyopia Detected in Children Eight Years of Age and Older

PURPOSE: To determine the outcome of part-time occlusion therapy in children with anisometropic amblyopia detected after they were 8 years of age. METHODS: We analyzed 29 eyes with anisometropic amblyopia in children 8 years of age and older. The mean age was 8.79±0.98 (range 8~12) years old. The subjects whose best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA) did not improve by two lines or better within 2 weeks of wearing glasses full-time were prescribed occlusion therapy for 6 hours a day outside of school hours, along with the instruction to wear glasses full-time. Subjects who complied with occlusion for more than 3 hours a day were considered to comply well. RESULTS: The major component of the anisometropia was hyperopia in 51.7% of the subjects, and hyperopia plus astigmatism was found in 24.1%. The mean pretreatment BCVA score was 0.51±0.23 (LogMAR). Compliance was 89.66%. The mean posttreatment BCVA was 0.03±0.01 (LogMAR), and the success rate, based on a posttreatment BCVA of 0.1 (LogMAR) and better, was 96.43%. It took an average of 4.79±3.35 months to reach the desired posttreatment BCVA. The mean posttreatment stereopsis was 79.78±37.61 seconds of arc. The recurrence rate was 8%. The visual improvement was related to the degree of compliance (p=0.000). The time taken to reach the posttreatment BCVA was shorter in subjects with a better pretreatment BCVA (p=0.019), but it did not relate to the compliance (p=0.366). CONCLUSIONS: The most common component of anisometropia detected after 8 years of age was hyperopia. The part-time occlusion therapy, which had been carried out after school hours, was successful in most cases.