More than half of childhood blindness has a treatable cause

A new study conducted by the IRIS Registry found that more than half of children who are blind in the United States have a treatable cause of blindness.

In this cross-sectional study, 961 children were identified as having visual acuity 20/200 or worse in their better seeing eye.

The leading causes of blindness were as follows:
-Retinopathy of prematurity in 31.3%
-Nystagmus is 8.1%
-Cataract in 6.7%

Retina, optic nerve, and lens were the leading anatomic site in 47.7%, 11.6%, and 10%, respectively.

Overall, 52.4% of patients had treatable causes of blindness.

Reference
Lim HW, Pershing S, Moshfeghi DM, et al; IRIS® Registry Analytic Center Consortium. Causes of Childhood Blindness in the United States using the IRIS® Registry (Intelligent Research in Sight). Ophthalmology. 2023;S0161-6420(23)00245-2. doi: 10.1016/j.ophtha.2023.04.004. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 37037315.