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Objective: To compare daily atropine to weekend atropine as prescribed treatments for moderate amblyopia in children younger than 7 years., Design: Prospective, randomized multicenter clinical trial (30 sites)., Participants: One hundred sixty-eight children younger than 7 years with amblyopia in the range of 20/40 to 20/80 associated with strabismus, anisometropia, or both., Intervention: Randomization either to daily atropine or to weekend atropine for 4 months. Partial responders were continued on the randomized treatment until no further improvement was noted., Main Outcome Measure: Visual acuity (VA) in the amblyopic eye after 4 months., Results: The improvement in VA of the amblyopic eye from baseline to 4 months averaged 2.3 lines in each group. The VA of the amblyopic eye at study completion was either (1) at least 20/25 or (2) better than or equal to that of the sound eye in 39 children (47%) in the daily group and 45 children (53%) in the weekend group. The VA of the sound eye at the end of follow-up was reduced by 2 lines in one patient in each group. Stereoacuity outcomes were similar in the 2 groups., Conclusions: Weekend atropine provides an improvement in VA of a magnitude similar to that of the improvement provided by daily atropine in treating moderate amblyopia in children 3 to 7 years old. This article contains additional online-only material available at http://www.ophsource.com/periodicals/ophtha.

Objective: To compare full-time patching (all hours or all but 1 hour per day) to 6 hours of patching per day, as prescribed treatments for severe amblyopia in children younger than 7 years., Design: Prospective, randomized multicenter clinical trial (32 sites)., Participants: One hundred seventy-five children younger than 7 years with amblyopia in the range of 20/100 to 20/400., Intervention: Randomization either to full-time patching or to 6 hours of patching per day, each combined with at least 1 hour of near-visual activities during patching., Main Outcome Measure: Visual acuity in the amblyopic eye after 4 months., Results: Visual acuity in the amblyopic eye improved a similar amount in both groups. The improvement in the amblyopic eye acuity from baseline to 4 months averaged 4.8 lines in the 6-hour group and 4.7 lines in the full-time group (P = 0.45)., Conclusion: Six hours of prescribed daily patching produces an improvement in visual acuity that is of similar magnitude to the improvement produced by prescribed full-time patching in treating severe amblyopia in children 3 to less than 7 years of age.