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Effectiveness of the Spot Vision Screener in screening 3-year-old children with potential amblyopia in Japan

  • Clinical Investigation
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Japanese Journal of Ophthalmology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to compare the efficiency of conventional screening and of the Spot™ Vision Screener (SVS)-based screening in detecting potential cases of amblyopia during the Visual examination in Three-Year-Old Health Screening Program (VTYOS), that need to be referred for comprehensive examination.

Study Design

Population-based cross-sectional study

Methods

This study introduced the SVS-based test to the VTYOS (which includes primary, secondary, and comprehensive examinations) of Sagae, Yamagata Prefecture, Japan. Children aged 3 years 6 months scheduled to undergo the secondary examination were subjected to both the SVS-based (evaluation of refractive error and eye alignment) and conventional screening test (questionnaire and visual acuity evaluation). Success rates, proportion of children who needed a comprehensive examination, rates of actual comprehensive examinations, and positive predictive value were determined and compared between conventional screening and SVS-based screening.

Results

There were 294 participants; the rate of success of SVS-based screening (99.7%) was higher than conventional screening (89.5%, p < 0.01). The proportion of participants found to need a comprehensive examination according to SVS-based findings (7.5%) was lower than that according to conventional screening-based findings (23.5%, p < 0.01). The positive predictive value of the SVS-based screening test (75.0%) was higher than that of the conventional screening test (31.6%, p < 0.01). SVS-based screening detected 2 cases of amblyopia in 225 cases that passed conventional screening.

Conclusion

The VTYOS should ideally add SVS-based screening to conventional screening.

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Acknowledgements

This study received a grant from Pleotropic research of effective health checkups of infants and toddlers, based on the epidemiology of illness [17gk0110008h0003] and Yamagata Medical Association. In addition, we thank Sagae-shi Yamagata and Yamagata Ophthalmologist Association for cooperating heartily with this study. We would like to thank Editage (https://www.editage.com) for English language editing.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Ophthalmology, Faculty of Medicine, Yamagata University, 2-2-2 Iidanishi, Yamagata, Yamagata, 990-9585, Japan

    Shion Hayashi, Koichi Nishitsuka & Hidetoshi Yamashita

  2. Suzuki Eye Clinic, Sagae, Japan

    Issaku Suzuki & Akira Inamura

  3. Yamagata Saisei Hospital, Yamagata, Japan

    Yaoko Iino

  4. Division of Ophthalmology and Laboratory for Visual Science, National Center for Child Health and Development, Tokyo, Japan

    Sachiko Nishina

Authors
  1. Shion Hayashi
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  2. Issaku Suzuki
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  3. Akira Inamura
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  4. Yaoko Iino
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  5. Koichi Nishitsuka
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  6. Sachiko Nishina
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  7. Hidetoshi Yamashita
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Shion Hayashi.

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Conflicts of interest

S. Hayashi, Honorarium for Lecturing, Advisory Board fee (Welch Allyn); I. Suzuki, None; A. Inamura, None; Y. Iino, None; K. Nishituka, Honorarium for Lecturing (Santen, RE Medical, ZEISS, Alcon, Novartis, Kowa, Johnson & Johnson, Senju, Sanwa Kagaku Kenkyusho, HOYA); S. Nishina, None; H. Yamashita, Grant (Senju, Alcon, Trustmedical, Atsuzawa, AMO), Grant, Honorarium for Lecturing (Santen), Grant, Honorarium for Chair, Advisory Board fee (Novartis).

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Corresponding Author: Shion Hayashi

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Hayashi, S., Suzuki, I., Inamura, A. et al. Effectiveness of the Spot Vision Screener in screening 3-year-old children with potential amblyopia in Japan. Jpn J Ophthalmol 65, 537–545 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10384-021-00823-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10384-021-00823-x

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