Amblyopia treatment outcomes did not differ in a multi-regional binocular treatment trial between Chinese Han and White children

To date, no study has compared amblyopia treatment outcomes between White and Chinese Han children treated using a similar protocol, and data are lacking on whether treatment efficacy differs by race/ethnicity. This post-hoc exploratory analysis compared two methods of amblyopia treatment outcomes (patching and binocular treatment (CureSight, NovaSight, Israel) between Chinese Han and White children enrolled in a prospective, multicenter, evaluator-masked randomized clinical trial. A total of 186 children aged 4 to < 9 years (137 White; 49 Chinese Han) with anisometropic, strabismic, or mixed-mechanism amblyopia were randomized in 1:1 ratio to home-based binocular treatment (90 min/day, 5 days/week) or patching (2 h/day, 7 days/week) for 16 weeks. Overall amblyopic-eye visual acuity (VA) improvement was similar in White and Chinese Han participants (0.25 ± 0.13 and 0.24 ± 0.11 logarithm of the minimum angle of resolution (logMAR) (mean ± standard deviation), respectively; both p < 0.0001); the between-race least-squares mean difference was -0.026 logMAR (95% CI -0.209 to 0.157; p = 0.777). No significant between-race differences were found in stereoacuity improvement (p = 0.15) or binocular VA improvement (p = 0.856). Adherence exceeded 85% in both groups (monitored objectively via eye-tracking logs for binocular treatment and via parental diaries for patching); no serious adverse events were reported. These findings suggest that amblyopia treatment outcomes may not differ meaningfully by race/ethnicity, though the small Chinese Han sample (n = 49) limits definitive conclusions. Larger prospective studies are warranted.