RETINAL BIREFRINGENCE ANALYSIS IN STRABISMUS & AMBLYOPIA

描述（作者摘要）：弱视是主要的可治疗的原因， 儿童期视力丧失，患病率为2- 5%。其响应于 治疗早期的生活，但延误治疗可能会导致终身视力 损伤不幸的是，卫生保健从业人员往往无法 确定弱视的危险因素，包括斜视、中膜混浊， 屈光参差，在5岁以下的患者，使弱视的许多情况下去 未被发现和治疗。需要一种更有效的方法， 检测弱视危险因素。眼睛的中央凹被一个 改变偏振的双折射纤维的独特图案 透射光的状态。我们的实验室已经开发出一种特殊形式的 视网膜双折射扫描（RBS），其中一个小光点的偏振斗争， 在视网膜上扫描一个圆圈，并测量返回的战斗， 极化的变化。我们已经证明，RBS准确（+/- 1度） 在不受限制的受试者（包括 婴儿和儿童），使研究弱视患者成为可能， 有患上弱视风险的幼儿。RBS的特点是， 然而，只有少数受试者，对个人知之甚少。 可变性我们还开发了双目RBS（BRBS）， 双眼同时固定，因此检测两眼间对准。 具体目的是更充分地表征正常和非正常情况下的RBS信号。 弱视受试者，以提高准确性（因此灵敏度和特异性），和 使用BRBS筛查正常和斜视受试者，以确定弱视风险 因素BRBS可能使自动筛查婴儿和儿童成为可能 对于弱视风险因素的存在，包括眼位不正， 介质不透明和可能的屈光不正，从而促进早期 检测和治疗这种可预防的失明。的能力 筛选早期的小偏差可能有助于解决 弱视的早期发现和治疗的疗效。

DESCRIPTION (Author Abstract): Amblyopia is the leading treatable cause of vision loss in childhood, with a prevalence of 2-5%. It is responsive to treatment early in life, but delayed treatment can result in life-long visual impairment. Unfortunately, health care practitioners are often unable to identify amblyopia risk factors, including strabismus, media opacities, and anisometropia, in patients under age 5, so that many cases of amblyopia go undetected and untreated. There is a need for a more effective method of detecting amblyopia risk factors. The fovea of the eye is surrounded by a distinctive pattern of birefrefringent fibers that change the polarization state of transmitted light. Our laboratory has developed a specialized form of retinal birefringence scanning (RBS), in which a small spot of polarized fight is scanned in a circle on the retina, and the returning fight measured for changes in polarization. We have demonstrated that RBS accurately (+/- 1 deg) detects foveal fixation in real time, in unrestrained subjects (including infants and children), making it possible to study patients with amblyopia and young children at risk for developing amblyopia. RBS has been characterized in only a small number of subjects, however, and little is known about individual variability. We have also developed binocular RBS (BRBS), which detects fixation of both eyes simultaneously and hence detects interocular alignment. The specific aims are to more fully characterize the RBS signal in normal and amblyopic subjects to enhance accuracy (hence sensitivity and specificity), and to screen normal and strabismic subjects using BRBS to identify amblyopia risk factors. BRBS may make it possible to screen infants and children automatically for the presence of amblyopia risk factors, including ocular misalignment, media opacity, and possibly refractive error, thereby facilitating early detection and treatment of this preventable form of blindness. The ability to screen for early, small deviations may help resolve conflicting findings on the efficacy of early amblyopia detection and treatment.