A One-Year Review of Amblyopia Treatment for Literate
Patients at King Chulalongkorn Memorial Hospital
Bharkbhum Khambhiphant MD*,
Wisara Srisuwanwattana MD**
Affiliation :
* Department of Ophthalmology, King Chulalongkorn Memorial Hospital, Thai Red Cross Society, Bangkok, Thailand
** Department of Ophthalmology, Faculty of Medicine, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand
Objective : To report the characteristics and the success rate of treatment of newly diagnosed amblyopia at Department of
Ophthalmology, King Chulalongkorn Memorial Hospital between January 2007 and December 2007.
Material and Method: The authors performed retrospective chart reviews of 16 newly diagnosed amblyopic literate patients.
Successful treatment was defined as having best corrected visual acuity (BCVA) ≥ 3 Snellen lines improvement or ≥ 20/30
in the amblyopic eye.
Results : Of 16 patients, the mean age was 8.62 3.07 years old. The causes of amblyopia were 12 refractive error (75%),
three strabismus (18.75%), and one visual deprivation (6.25%). The mean BCVA, before treatment, of amblyopic eyes was
0.74 0.4 LogMAR and after treatment, BCVA was 0.41 0.33 LogMAR. Seven (43.75%) patients were treated successfully
whereas nine (56.25%) patients were not. No significant association was found between presenting age (p-value 0.92) (95%
CI -3.59 to 3.72), cause of amblyopia (p-value 0.22) (95% CI -0.74 to 0.07), degree of refractive error (p-value 0.71) (95%
CI -8.27 to 0.68) and treatment outcome.
Conclusion : Refractive amblyopia was the major cause of amblyopia in our clinic. Combined refractive correction and
patching were the effective treatments of choice. Early diagnosis and prompt initiation of treatments will help achieve the
optimal therapeutic outcome.
Keywords : Amblyopia, Strabismus, Refractive error, Visual deprivation, Patching
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