• Christine Schmucker, Eberhard Thörel, Magdalena Flatscher-Thöni, Dorothea Sow, Anne Göhner, Verena Stühlinger, Nikolai Mühlberger, Wolf A Lagrèze, and Jörg Meerpohl.
• Faculty of Medicine, Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg; Institute for Public Health, Medical Decision Making and Health Technology Assessment, UMIT TIROL - Private University for Health Sciences and Technology; Department of Information Management, Quality and Economic Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG), Cologne; Center for Geriatric Medicine and Gerontology, Freiburg University Hospital, Faculty of Medicine, Albert Ludwigs University Freiburg; Department of Ophthalmology, Freiburg University Hospital, Faculty of Medicine, Albert Ludwigs University Freiburg; Cochrane Germany, Cochrane Germany Foundation, Freiburg.
• Dtsch Arztebl Int. 2023 Nov 3; 120 (44): 747753747-753.

BackgroundIn this systematic review, we address the question whether children and adolescents with developmental visual disorders benefit from computer-assisted visual training.MethodsSystematic literature searches were carried out in three bibliographic databases (initial search in October 2021) and trial registries. Included were randomized controlled trials that evaluated the efficacy of computer-assisted visual training in children and adolescents with developmental visual disorders in comparison to no training, sham training, or conservative treatment.ResultsThe inclusion criteria were met by 17 trials (with a total of 1323 children and adolescents) focusing on binocular or monocular computer-assisted visual training for the treatment of amblyopia. In these trials, visual training was carried out for 2 to 24 weeks, either as "stand alone" therapy or in addition to occlusion therapy. Six trials showed a statistically significant difference in favor of the visual training for the outcome "best corrected visual acuity of the amblyopic eye." However, this difference was small and mostly below the threshold of clinical relevance of -0.05 logMAR (equivalent to an improvement of 0.5 lines on the eye chart, or 2.5 letters per line). Only few data were available for the outcomes "binocular vision" and "adverse events"; the differences between the groups were similarly small.ConclusionThe currently available data do not permit any firm conclusions regarding the efficacy of visual training in children and adolescents with amblyopia. Moreover, treatment adherence was often insufficient and the treatment durations in the trials was relatively short. No results from randomized trials have yet been published with respect to other developmental visual disorders (refractive errors, strabismus).

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