Comparative changes in the error of refraction between fixing and amblyopic eyes during growth and development.

Measurements of the refractive errors in 55 strabismic patients--one eye with visual acuity of 0.8 or better and the other with reduced vision, 0.4 or less due to amblyopia, and performed at roughly two-year intervals during growth and development to approximately age 25 years--showed that the eye with normal visual acuity was significantly more myopic with age, whereas there was no appreciable change in the average refractive error of the amblyopic eye. Both eyes of a control group of patients of similar age having normal distant vision and orthophoria were more myopic with age. In this group there was an insignificant difference in the change in refractive error of one eye compared with its fellow during comparable periods of time.