Profile of amblyopia in children of age 5 to 15 years at tertiary care center in Kumaon region, Uttarakhand

Abstract

Background and objectives: Amblyopia is one of the major causes of visual impairment in children. Early treatment and diagnosis of amblyopia can have a considerable impact on quality of life of children .This cross sectional study was done to study the profile of amblyopia. Methods: 3963 children were evaluated for amblyopia at tertiary care center of Kumaonregion from 1 January 2019 to 30 September 2020.Evaluation included assessment of best corrected visual acuity(BCVA),refractive status of both eyes,laterality of amblyopia, age of presentation,history of previous treatment,type of deviation and type of amblyopia.Results: 148 eyes of 103 patients were found amblyopic. Average age of presentation was 10.04± 3.248 years with 75 patients (72.9%) above 8 years. Majority of patients i.e. (55/103,53.4%) had not taken any previous treatment for amblyopia. Most of the children i.e. 40(38.8%) had anisometropic amblyopia Unilateral amblyopia was present in 58 children (56.30%) in our study. In 148 amblyopic eyes, astigmatism was the most common refractive error (72.3 %) and least was myopia (8.80%).24 patients (23.3%) were strabismic.Interpretation & Conclusion: Majority of patients with amblyopia presented late with significant number presenting without any history of previous treatment. Anisometropic amblyopia was present in large proportion of patients as well as in those who presented in later ages.Thus, it demands an urgent need to take steps to increase awareness among parents and to perform screening in children to detect large uncorrected refractive errors which if not corrected timely can cause irreversible vision loss.