Bill Harvey: Future world

While our thoughts go out to those thwarted by a local spike in the city of Richard III’s final resting place, the general positive trend in infection rates this week deserves, I thought, an otherwise Covid-free comment. Instead, I will mention two recent findings that may well have slipped through our attention but have potential implications for future primary care practice.

Firstly, a team from China has studied over 4,000 children using OCT and found a possible diagnostic tool for amblyopia.¹ Until now, confirmation of amblyopia has been ‘a diagnosis of exclusion’, reliant upon subjective acuity measurement. Using OCT-angiography, it now appears that those children with amblyopia have a measurable reduction in blood flow in one of the layers imaged by OCT-A, and that the reduction correlates well with the level of amblyopia suggested by acuity levels. Many OCTs are upgradeable to include OCT-A and, if studies of other ethnic populations find the same result, then it appears that a repeatable and easy to use objective test for amblyopia may be within sight.