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Importance: Understanding the pathophysiology of the macula in amblyopic eyes is an active research area., Objective: To correlate macular retinal vascular density changes with best-corrected visual acuity changes following occlusion therapy for amblyopia in children., Design: A prospective cohort study of children visiting the Pediatric Ophthalmology Division of our institution between January 2020 and January 2022 was conducted., Setting: A specialist eye hospital in Saudi Arabia., Participants: Thirty children with unilateral amblyopia., Exposure: Occlusion therapy for amblyopia.Main Outcome and Measures: Best corrected visual acuity (logMAR) before and at each of the four optical coherence tomographic angiographies was compared in amblyopic and fellow eyes. The effect of pretreatment determinants on the correlation between best-corrected visual acuity and retinal vascular density changes was reviewed., Results: In this cohort of 30 amblyopic and 30 fellow eyes from 30 children (mean age 8.7 ± 1.4 years; male: female 18:12. The best-corrected visual acuity improved from a median of 0.6 (interquartile range 0.5; 1.1) pretreatment to a median of 0.4 (interquartile range 0.2; 0.6) posttreatment in amblyopic eyes, and from a median of 0.1 to 0.05 in the fellow eyes. The total percentage change in retinal vascular density in the amblyopic eye was significantly higher than that in the fellow eye ( Z  = -1.92, P  = 0.05). The change in best-corrected visual acuity in the amblyopic eye after a median of 98 months (interquartile range, 69-126 months) of intervention was significantly correlated with the refraction-adjusted change in retinal vascular density ( B  = -0.03, 95 % confidence interval -0.04, -0.02, P  < 0.001) and was influenced by strabismus ( B  = -0.46, 95 % confidence interval -0.59, -0.34, P  < 0.001), type of amblyopia ( B  = 0.24, 95 % confidence interval 0.12, 0.36, P  < 0.001), duration of occlusion ( B  = -0.43, 95 % confidence interval -0.65, -0.22, P  < 0.001), and occlusion compliance ( B  = 0.24, 95 % confidence interval 0.11, 0.36, P  < 0.001)., Conclusions: and Relevance: The RVD in amblyopic eyes in the first six months of therapy was significantly lower than that in fellow eyes, but not in subsequent assessments., Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (© 2024 The Authors.)

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to estimate the rate and review determinants of successful therapy for unilateral amblyopia in children., Methods: This prospective cohort consisted of Saudi children aged 6-12 who received amblyopia therapy between 2020 and 2022. Best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA) in the amblyopic eye improved to reach the BCVA of the fellow eye at follow-up visits, or BCVA in the amblyopic eye improved and remained stable over three follow-up visits. Demographic and ocular characteristics were associated with the outcome., Results: In 30 children, the median BCVA at presentation and the last follow-up was 0.8 logMAR (interquartile range [IQR]: 0.6; 1.0) and 0.45 logMAR (IQR: 0.3; 0.6), respectively. The success rate of amblyopia therapy was 80% (95% confidence interval: 65.7; 94.3). It was 100%, 76.5%, and 77.8% in eyes with anisometropic, strabismic, and mixed types of amblyopia, respectively. Amblyopia grade ( P = 0.177), type of amblyopia ( P = 0.96), and spectacles as therapy in the past ( P = 0.09) were not significantly associated with the successful out. The duration of follow-up was significantly longer in those with unsuccessful outcomes ( P = 0.05). Excellent compliance for occlusion was observed in 62.5% of children with successful outcomes. In 14 (46.7%) children, BCVA was ≤0.3 logMAR BCVA at the last follow-up. Two-line improvement in amblyopic eyes was in 26 (86.7%) children at the last follow-up compared to BCVA at presentation., Conclusion: Occlusion therapy complemented using glasses in older children also significantly improved visual recovery in amblyopic eyes., Competing Interests: There are no conflicts of interest., (Copyright: © 2023 Middle East African Journal of Ophthalmology.)

Glycated hemoglobin (HbA 1c ) measurement provides the most important medium to long-term marker of time-averaged glycemic status. Its relationship to clinical outcome in diabetes has been convincingly demonstrated for both type 1 and type 2 diabetes. The main HbA 1c measurement methods for clinical routine are as follows: ion-exchange chromatography; affinity chromatography, capillary electrophoresis, immunoassay and enzymatic methods. In this study, we evaluated the analytical performances of a new HPLC instrument (Tosoh HLC-723 G11 in the VAR mode) in HbA 1c analysis and compared it with a capillary electrophoresis instrument (Sebia Capillarys 2 Flex Piercing). HbA 1c analysis was performed in parallel by both methods for 250 samples randomly chosen from healthy and diabetic subjects at 'Tor Vergata' University Hospital of Rome. Tosoh HLC-723 G11 showed good reproducibility for 10 days both in quality controls and in samples analyzed (%CV < 2%). We found good linearity for HbA1c values ranging from 15 mmol/mol (3.5%) to 178 mmol/mol (18.5%), with a correlation coefficient R 2  = 1. In a comparison between Tosoh HLC-723 G11 and Capillarys 2FP a good correlation (r = 0.99) was found; however, Tosoh HLC-723 G11 showed higher values in the low range of HbA 1c and lower in the high range (Tosoh HLC-723 G11 = 4.3043 + 0.913 Capillarys 2FP; p < 0.001). Tosoh HLC-723 G11 showed good repeatability, reproducibility, accuracy and automated simplicity, and it seemed suitable for routine use in clinical chemistry laboratories.