BMJ  2007;335:678-679 (6 October), doi:10.1136/bmj.39343.640938.80

Editorials

Occlusion therapy for amblyopia

Electronic monitoring of compliance shows that prescribing longer periods of occlusion is not always better

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Amblyopia affects about 3-5% of the population. Occlusion therapy using an eye patch to cover the non-amblyopic eye for a couple of hours each day has been the principal means of treatment. The sensitive period in which vision loss can develop and be recovered is generally up to 6 years of age.1 In many European countries, population based screening and treatment by orthoptists has reduced the proportion of people with untreated or insufficiently treated amblyopia to about 1% of the population.2 3

The effectiveness of screening and treatment for amblyopia in the United Kingdom has been questioned because of insufficient evidence from randomised controlled trials,4 and an effort is now being made to assess its effectiveness and cost. In this week's BMJ, a randomised controlled trial by Stewart and colleagues compares the effect of prescribing six or 12 hours of occlusion each day in 97 children with amblyopia associated with . . . [Full text of this article]

Sjoukje E Loudon, research fellow1, Huibert J Simonsz, professor of ophthalmology2

1 Children's Hospital Boston and Harvard Medical School, Department of Ophthalmology, Boston, MA 02115, USA, 2 Erasmus MC University Medical Centre Rotterdam, Department of Ophthalmology, PO Box 2040, 3000 CA Rotterdam, Netherlands

seloudon@yahoo.com


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Relevant Article

Objectively monitored patching regimens for treatment of amblyopia: randomised trial
Catherine E Stewart, David A Stephens, Alistair R Fielder, Merrick J Moseley ROTAS Cooperative
BMJ 2007 335: 707. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

This article has been cited by other articles:

  • Lempert, P. (2007). Occlusion studies are ambiguous. BMJ 335: 842-842 [Full text]  
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