The presentation of children with amblyopia

Abstract

This study reports the presentation of 961 children who underwent amblyopia treatment at seven orthoptic centres in the United Kingdom. We confirmed previous authors' findings of a small but significant increased incidence of left-sided compared with right-sided amblyopia overall. For pure anisometropic amblyopia this difference was very marked and a possible pathophysiological mechanism is proposed. The mean age of presentation for anismetropic, strabismic and mixed amblyopia was 5.6, 3.3 and 4.4 years, respectively. Neither sex nor race affected the age of presentation. Despite their older age, children with pure anisometropic amblyopia had the best initial visual acuity, with 25% of anisometropes having an initial visual acuity of less than 6/18 compared with 39% of strabismics and 50% of mixed amblyopes. The ages and initial acuities of the strabismic patients in this series are at least as favourable as those of patients reported from outside the UK. There were variations in the age and proportion of patients presenting with anisometropic amblyopia at the different centres, suggesting a failure in the referral of anisometropic amblyopia of importance in interpreting epidemiological studies.