The objective of this study was to compare prospectively the efficacy between intermittent atropine penalization and part-time occlusion therapy for amblyopia in patients younger than 10 years old.

The patients with newly diagnosed amblyopia were randomly assigned to either atropine penalization (Group A) or occlusion therapy (Group O). One drop of atropine was instilled into the sound eyes of patients in group A twice per week, while each patient in group O underwent daily patching for 6 hours in their sound eyes. The minimum follow-up time was 3 months after treatment. Best corrected visual acuity and compliance were compared for both groups.

A total of 43 patients were enrolled in this study, with 18 assigned to group A and 25 to group O. The follow-up period was not significantly different between group A and group O (6.3 and 7.0 months, respectively; p =0.437). The final corrected visual acuity (LogMAR) scores of amblyopic eyes in both groups showed significant improvement in the visual acuity of amblyopic eyes compared with that at baseline (0.28 in group A and 0.19 in group O). Group A had a higher level of compliance than group O (97.0 and 91.5%, respectively; p =0.007). There was no difference in the groups with regard to visual acuity in amblyopic eyes,which showed similar improvement (3.5:3.4 lines, respectively; p =0.867).

This study shows that for treating amblyopia in children younger than 10 years old, intermittent atropine penalization seems to be as effective as part-time occlusion.