The Correlation Between Amblyopia and the Clinical Characteristics of Pediatric Strabismus in Eye Hospital of Ho Chi Minh City in 2020

Introduction: Pediatric strabismus is a common disorder that may lead to amblyopia, a complication that perpetually decrease visual acuity in children. Updating the changes of this disorder through time and understanding the clinical signs that correlate with amblyopia are important in clinical practice. Materials and methods: Retrospective, cross sectional study. Medical documents of 1101 patients diagnosed with pediatric strabismus from January 1st, 2020 to December 31st, 2020 in Ho Chi Minh city Eye Hospital were included in this study. Patients age, gender, location, age of discovery, clinical characteristics of strabismus, related medical history (pre-term birth, refractive errors), visual acuity and other complications (amblyopia, loss of binocular vision) were recorded. Results: The prevalence of exotropia, esotropia and vertical strabismus were 68.4%, 29.3% and 2.3%, in order. The prevalence of monocular strabismus and alternating strabismus were 25.2% and 74.8%, in order. The prevalence of manifest strabismus and intermittent strabismus were 34.1% and 65.9%, in order. Refractive errors were diagnosed in 87.3% of patients. Amblyopia was diagnosed in 34% of patients. Amblyopia appeared to be dominant in age of onset >1 than in age of onset ≤1 (RR = 1.39, p = 0.0001) in esotropia than other types (RR = 5.16, p<0.0001), and in monocular strabismus than in alternating strabismus (RR = 1.23, p = 0.02). Conclusion: Late age of discovery, esotropia and monocular strabismus appears to increase the risk of amblyopia in pediatric strabismus.