Risk of recurrence after cessation of dichoptic, binocular treatment of amblyopia

Contrast-rebalanced dichoptic games and videos have been shown to be an effective treatment for childhood amblyopia. Whether the visual acuity gains achieved with these binocular treatments are long-lasting has not been determined. In this prospective cohort study of 100 consecutive amblyopic children who improved by ≥0.2 logMAR or obtained ≤0.2 logMAR amblyopic eye visual acuity during a binocular treatment clinical trial, risk of recurrence was 24% (95% CI, 16%-35%) at up to 3 years' follow-up according to Kaplan-Meier survival analysis, which accounts for censored, truncated, and missing data. Risk of recurrence was similar among children who required additional treatment for residual amblyopia after 4-8 weeks of dichoptic treatment (n = 62 [19%]; 95% CI, 10%-34%) and those who did not (n = 38 [32%]; 95% CI, 18%-52%; P = 0.12). There was no association between recurrence and age, visual acuity at the end of binocular treatment, stereoacuity, or ocular alignment. In a secondary analysis to compare rates of recurrence with published data, risk of recurrence in the subset of children who had no additional treatment for residual amblyopia (28%) was similar to the reported recurrence after cessation of successful patching and atropine (24%) at 12 months. Children with successful binocular treatment of amblyopia require monitoring for recurrence of amblyopia.