Laser therapy outpaces cryotherapy for treating ocular disease in 10-year study.(Brief Article)

2002 JUN 13 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- by Sonia Nichols, senior medical writer - Follow-up evaluations of patients treated for retinopathy of prematurity show that overall, laser therapy yields better outcomes than cryotherapy does.

Retinopathy of prematurity is a disease causing misplacement or malformation of the retina by overgrown blood vessels that develop as a result of excess oxygen. Premature infants weighing fewer than 3 pounds who are placed in high-oxygen environments after being born are typically candidates for this disorder. Like other ocular diseases, it can be treated, to some degree, with laser photocoagulation or cryotherapy.

Doctors at Wills Eye Hospital in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, recently reported their findings after completing a 10-year study of 25 patients with 44 eyes that were randomly assigned to receive one of the treatment methods after being diagnosed with retinopathy of prematurity. Sixty-six patients were originally enrolled in the \ clinical trial.

Using standard tools for assessing vision and ocular pathology, the group, headed by William Tasman, reported follow-up data and noted treatment that had been rendered for strabismus or amblyopia during the intervening years.

Usually, having a value of 20/20 on the Snellen test without the use of corrective appliances is considered perfect vision. "Eyes treated with laser had a mean best-corrected ETDRS visual acuity (BCVA) of 20/66 (Snellen equivalent), whereas cryotherapy-treated eyes had a mean BCVA of 20/182 (Snellen equivalent) (p=0.015, n=42)," said Eugene Y.J. Ng, a project collaborator from the National University of Ireland in Dublin, Ireland.

Moreover, ...