Purpose: To report normative data on paediatric refractive and ocular indices in kindergarten Israeli children.
Methods: Retrospective cross-sectional study of 101,417 Israeli children from 4-5 years old, obtained from 2013-2018. Data was collected using the PlusoptiX S12. We studied the number of referrals made for hyperopia, myopia, astigmatism and anisometropia.
Results: Mean sphere value was 0.83D±0.73 for the right eye and 0.85D±0.73 for the left eye. Mean SE was 0.56D±0.66 for the right eye and 0.59D±0.67 for the left eye. Mean cylinder value was -0.53D±0.48 for the right eye and was the same, -0.53D±0.47, for the left eye. Mean axis values for the right and left eyes were 80.85°±55.57 and 80.42°±56.60 respectively. Mean pupil size was 5.83mm±0.87 for the right eye, and 5.82mm±0.88 for the left eye. 13.26% had anisocoria ≥0.4mm; of these, 0.66% had anisocoria >1.0mm. There was no difference in pupil size between sexes or different cities. Mean IPD was 49.58mm±3.50, and mean gaze vector value was 2.64±1.66. According to the Vision Screening Guidelines, 0.8% of children had hyperopia and 0.17% had myopia. 6.22% of children had astigmatism and 10.85% had anisometropia.
Conclusion: Amblyopia is the most common cause of unilateral vision loss in childhood. The earlier the diagnosis, the better the outcome, hence the importance of investigating the causative indices leading to amblyopia in kindergarten. After searching the literature, this is the largest study population for this topic to our knowledge.