Dichoptic therapy is a promising method for improving vision in pediatric and adult
patients with amblyopia. However, a systematic understanding about changes in specific
visual functions and substantial variation of effect among patients is lacking. Utilizing
a novel stereoscopic augmented-reality based training program, 24 pediatric and 18
adult patients were trained for 20 h along a three-month time course with a one-month
post-training follow-up for pediatric patients. Changes in stereopsis, distance and
near visual acuity, and contrast sensitivity for amblyopic and fellow eyes were measured,
and interocular differences were analyzed. To reveal what contributes to successful
dichoptic therapy, ANCOVA models were used to analyze progress, considering clinical
baseline parameters as covariates that are potential requirements for amblyopic recovery.
Significant and lasting improvements have been achieved in stereoacuity, interocular
near visual acuity, and interocular contrast sensitivity. Importantly, astigmatism,
fixation instability, and lack of stereopsis were major limiting factors for visual
acuity, stereoacuity, and contrast sensitivity recovery, respectively. The results
demonstrate the feasibility of treatment-efficacy prediction in certain aspects of
dichoptic amblyopia therapy. Furthermore, our findings may aid in developing personalized
therapeutic protocols, capable of considering individual clinical status, to help
clinicians in tailoring therapy to patient profiles for better outcome.
