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Acupuncture could be option to treat 'lazy eye': Study
Published on Tue, Dec 14, 2010 at 13:02 | Updated at Tue, Dec 14, 2010 at 16:08 | Source : Reuters
Acupuncture could be an alternative to eye patches or eye drops for older children with amblyopia, a common childhood vision problem more commonly known as "lazy eye," according to a study.
The problem, in which one eye is less farsighted or nearsighted than the other, can be corrected with glasses or contact lenses if caught at an early age. But both are less effective for children beyond about the age of 7, who traditionally have been treated by patching the stronger eye.
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But Robert Ritch of the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary and Chinese colleagues found that children treated by a certified acupuncturist had similar improvement in their affected eyes as those who wore a patch for a couple of hours each day.
Both advanced two lines or more on an eye chart over the course of the study, which was published in the Archives of Opthalmology.
"Acupuncture has been used for a lot of things in Chinese medicine. And it's being used more and more in the West," Ritch told Reuters Health.
"But evidence-based medicine to see what it actually does is relatively lacking."
Ritch and Chinese colleagues studied 88 children in China between the ages of 7 and 12 who suffered from amblyopia and had already been wearing glasses for at least 16 weeks.
They randomly assigned the children to wear a patch over the good eye for two hours every day, or to attend five acupuncture sessions weekly. The acupuncture needles were inserted at sites on the body associated with vision in traditional Chinese medicine.
All the children were also given new glasses to wear and asked to perform an hour of daily near-vision activities.
By the end of the 25 week study, sight in the affected eye had improved by at least two lines on an eye chart for 28 children in the patched group, or 66.7%, and 31 in the acupuncture group, or 75.6%.
More than twice as many children who received acupuncture overcame the condition compared to those who wore an eye patch, 42% against 17%.
Some experts were sceptical, noting the small size of the study and the fact that there was no untreated group to use to see if doing nothing, or simply wearing glasses and doing daily exercises, would work just as well.
Matthew Gearinger at the University of Rochester in New York, who was not involved in the study, told Reuters Health it was encouraging to hear of alternate treatment methods.
"Patching can be annoying for kids. It can be socially tough to wear a patch at school, and wearing a patch at home can interfere with homework."
But he too noted the small size of the study and questioned whether the treatment option was practical, given that there are few acupuncturists in the United States with experience treating amblyopia.
Ritch and his team are following up with more studies.
"Don't knock Chinese medicine. It's been around for more than 3,000 years and there's a lot we don't understand yet," he said.
