Permanent results of pleoptic treatment

The value of pleoptic treatment was assessed by a long-term follow-up of patients treated 15-22 years ago, employing a questionnaire sent to 232 patients and a clinical examination of a sample of 44 of these. Answers were received from 157 persons with different occupations and educational levels who were fairly representative of the population of Northern Finland as a whole. The treatment was considered beneficial by 62% of these. The primary improvement in the mean visual acuity (VA) from 0.33 to 0.86 among the 44 persons examined proved to be partly transitory, the final mean value being 0.61. The poorest results were found in the combined strabismic and anisometropic amblyopia group. The final VA correlated positively with the initial VA and negatively with age at the time of treatment. Binocular single vision improved the prognosis. Altogether 1/4 of the patients achieved a VA of 1.0 or better, about one half experienced no permanent increase in VA and the remainder were distributed evenly between these two extremes.