A Randomized Trial of Binocular Dig Rush Game Treatment for Amblyopia in Children Aged 4 to 6 Years

Ruth E. Manny, Jonathan M. Holmes, Raymond T. Kraker, Zhuokai Li, Amy L. Waters, Krista R. Kelly, Lingkun Kong, Earl R. Crouch, Ingryd J. Lorenzana, Maan S. Alkharashi, Jennifer A. Galvin, Melissa L. Rice, B. Michele Melia, Susan A. Cotter

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

16 Scopus citations

Abstract

SIGNIFICANCE Binocular treatment for unilateral amblyopia is an emerging treatment that requires evaluation through a randomized clinical trial. PURPOSE This study aimed to compare change in amblyopic-eye visual acuity (VA) in children aged 4 to 6 years treated with the dichoptic binocular iPad (Apple, Cupertino, CA) game, Dig Rush (not yet commercially available; Ubisoft, Montreal, Canada), plus continued spectacle correction versus continued spectacle correction alone. METHODS Children (mean age, 5.7 years) were randomly assigned to home treatment for 8 weeks with the iPad game (prescribed 1 h/d, 5 d/wk [n = 92], or continued spectacle correction alone [n = 90]) in a multicenter randomized clinical trial. Before enrollment, children wearing spectacles were required to have at least 16 weeks of wear or no improvement in amblyopic-eye VA (<0.1 logMAR) for at least 8 weeks. Outcome was change in amblyopic-eye VA from baseline to 4 weeks (primary) and 8 weeks (secondary) assessed by masked examiner. RESULTS A total of 182 children with anisometropic (63%), strabismic (16%; <5Δ near, simultaneous prism and cover test), or combined-mechanism (20%) amblyopia (20/40 to 20/200; mean, 20/63) were enrolled. After 4 weeks, mean amblyopic VA improved by 1.1 logMAR lines with binocular treatment and 0.6 logMAR lines with spectacles alone (adjusted difference, 0.5 lines; 95.1% confidence interval [CI], 0.1 to 0.9). After 8 weeks, results (binocular treatment: mean amblyopic-eye VA improvement, 1.3 vs. 1.0 logMAR lines with spectacles alone; adjusted difference, 0.3 lines; 98.4% CI, -0.2 to 0.8 lines) were inconclusive because the CI included both zero and the pre-defined difference in mean VA change of 0.75 logMAR lines. CONCLUSIONS In 4- to 6-year-old children with amblyopia, binocular Dig Rush treatment resulted in greater improvement in amblyopic-eye VA for 4 weeks but not 8 weeks. Future work is required to determine if modifications to the contrast increment algorithm or other aspects of the game or its implementation could enhance the treatment effect.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)213-227
Number of pages15
JournalOptometry and Vision Science
Volume99
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - Mar 1 2022

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Ophthalmology
  • Optometry

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