Open AccessPharmacological therapy for amblyopia
Author(s) -
Anupam Singh,
Ritu Nagpal,
Sanjeev Mittal,
Chirag Bahuguna,
Prashant Kumar
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
taiwan journal of ophthalmology
Language(s) - Uncategorized
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.519
H-Index - 9
eISSN - 2211-5072
pISSN - 2211-5056
DOI - 10.4103/tjo.tjo_8_17
Subject(s) - medicine , carbidopa , levodopa , visual acuity , blindness , population , combination therapy , ophthalmology , optometry , disease , environmental health , parkinson's disease
Amblyopia is the most common cause of preventable blindness in children and young adults. Most of the amblyopic visual loss is reversible if detected and treated at appropriate time. It affects 1.0 to 5.0% of the general population. Various treatment modalities have been tried like refractive correction, patching (both full time and part time), penalization and pharmacological therapy. Refractive correction alone improves visual acuity in one third of patients with anisometropic amblyopia. Various drugs have also been tried of which carbidopa & levodopa have been popular. Most of these agents are still in experimental stage, though levodopa-carbidopa combination therapy has been widely studied in human amblyopes with good outcomes. Levodopa therapy may be considered in cases with residual amblyopia, although occlusion therapy remains the initial treatment choice. Regression of effect after stoppage of therapy remains a concern. Further studies are therefore needed to evaluate the full efficacy and side effect profile of these agents.