Orlando, FL —This morning Dr. Jonathan Homes of Mayo Clinic is one of a handful of researchers here selected to speak in the Editor’s Choice presentations, representing a subset of papers published in the last year that have “challenged or profoundly impacted the standards of clinical practice in ophthalmology.” The American Academy of Ophthalmology sponsors the session in collaboration with the journal Ophthalmology. In Dr. Holmes’s case it was his paper published online in July in the Archives of Ophthalmology that garnered the attention.
Dr. Jonathan Holmes (left) with colleague at AAO
His paper showed that the common understanding that amblyopia or “lazy eye” (decreased vision in one eye) wasn’t effectively treatable after age 8 or 9 was actually wrong. The condition, which is often treated in younger children with a patch over the normal eye, was seen as having a limited window of correction. Because the treatment in — lay terms – retrains the brain to use the other eye, it was thought that only children at a younger developmental age would benefit.
Dr. Holmes re-examined a range of studies and discovered that when children 7-13 were treated, the median improvement was just slightly lower than that for younger children, and that some individuals improved significantly. Where did the previous standard come from? Dr. Holmes says it was because some previous basic research findings were over-extrapolated, plus the spread of stories on anecdotal or individual cases. Eventually, he says, these became so commonplace that the concept worked its way into the textbooks, even though it was never supported by evidence.
Two to three percent of youngsters experience lazy eye, and while it has different causes, the scope of the condition makes Dr. Holmes’s correction to the practice of ophthalmology that much more significant.
