A Randomized Trial of Atropine Versus Patching for Treatment of Moderate Amblyopia

Amblyopia is a major cause of visual impairment in children. The goal of our study was to compare the patching method with atropine penalization as a treatment for moderate amblyopia in children between 4 and 10 years of age.Patients and This prospective, randomized clinical trial included 120 patients between 4 and 10 years of age suffering from moderate amblyopia in the range of 20/40 and 20/100 between 2004 and 2007. Subjects were randomly divided into equal-sized groups and received either the patch therapy or twice-weekly atropine penalization, and were followed for 2 years. Successful treatment was defined as an increase of 2 or more lines of visual acuity or a final visual acuity of 20/25 or better. By the end of the follow-up period, visual acuity in the amblyopic eye had improved from baseline by a mean of 3.8 lines in the patching group and 3.7 lines in the atropine group. The average visual acuity in both groups was 0.5 Log MAR acuity, which increased to 0.18 in the patching group and 0.2 in the atropine group. Twice-weekly atropine penalization and patching resulted in similar levels of visual acuity improvement in patients between the age of 4 and 10 years treated for moderate amblyopia.