Younger children are more responsive to amblyopia treatment

Children aged 7 years and younger are more responsive to amblyopia treatment than those aged between 7 and 13 years, according to a study featured in Archives of Ophthalmology.

Dr Jonathon M. Holmes and his team, Department of Ophthalmology, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota, USA, performed a meta-analysis of 4 recently completed randomized amblyopia treatment. This was done to evaluate the correlation between age and improvement in logMAR amblyopic eye visual acuity.

Each analysis was adjusted for spherical equivalent refractive error in the affected eye, type of amblyopia, baseline amblyopic eye visual acuity, previous amblyopia treatment, study treatment and protocol.

The results demonstrated that children aged between 7 and 13 years had a significantly reduced response rate to amblyopia treatment than children less than 7 years of age. However, no differences were found between those aged 3 to 5 years and those aged between 5 and 7 years with moderate ambylopia. Children aged between 3 to 5 years with severe ambylopia had a greater response to treatment than those aged 5 to 7 years.