Clinical correlation between automated vision screening under cycloplegia and retinoscopy in young children.

PURPOSE: To evaluate the clinical performance of the Spot Vision Screener and establish clinical correlations between automated screening and retinoscopy following induction of cycloplegia in preverbal children.

METHODS

In this prospective, cross-sectional study, children aged 6-36 months were evaluated using the Spot Vision Screener. A complete ophthalmologic examination, including cycloplegic refraction assessment, was performed, followed by repeat spot vision screening and retinoscopy in all cases to establish correlations regarding hypermetropia, myopia, and astigmatism following induction of induction cycloplegia.

RESULTS

The study included 185 children. The sensitivity of the automated screener after cycloplegia was 100% (95%CI: 85.18-100%), and specificity was 87.04% (95%CI: 80.87-91.79%). Positive and negative predictive values were 52.27% (42.36-62.01%) and 100%, respectively. Compared to retinoscopy, the Spot Vision Screener overestimated spherical values by 0.62 D (95%CI: 0.56-0.69) in the right eye and by 0.60 (95%CI: 0.54-0.66) in the left eye and cylindrical values by -0.38 D in the right eye (95%CI: -0.42--0.33) and by -0.39 D in the left eye (95%CI: -0.43--0.34). For overall spherical and cylindrical values, the difference was 0.61 D (95%CI: 0.57-0.65) and -0.38 D (95%CI: -0.41--0.35) in the left and right eyes, respectively.

CONCLUSION

A substantial correlation was found between retinoscopy and objective data captured by the device. This shows that technology can be used in conjunction, reaching a more accurate diagnosis and identifying amblyopia risk factors as early as possible. Photoscreening may make a difference at the population level for early screening and intervention.