Abstract:AIM: To characterize the current status, research hotspots, and evolutionary differences in clinical studies on amblyopia published in Chinese and English from 2015 to 2025, and to provide a reference for the clinical diagnosis and treatment as well as relevant research of amblyopia.
METHODS: Clinical studies on amblyopia in both Chinese and English were retrieved from the CNKI, VIP, Wanfang and Web of Science(WoS)databases. Bibliometric and visualization analyses of publication output, institutions, authors, and keywords were conducted using Cite Space 6.4.R1 and VOS viewer 1.6.19.
RESULTS: Totally 1 302 publications were included, comprising 920 Chinese and 382 English publications. The publications of Chinese literature declined after 2019, while that of English literature showed an upward trend. Relevant studies involved 18 countries, and the institutional cooperation connections of English literature were relatively closer. The core author cooperation networks of both Chinese and English literature presented multi-cluster distribution. A total of 360 and 283 keyword nodes were obtained from Chinese and English literature, respectively. The high-frequency keywords of both literatures covered four aspects, including amblyopia types, research populations, evaluation indicators, and treatment methods. Both Chinese and English studies focus on anisometropic and strabismic amblyopia. Chinese studies predominantly investigated children of different age groups, whereas adult amblyopia received earlier attention in the English literature. Visual acuity, contrast sensitivity, and stereopsis were the major outcome measures of common interest, while optical correction and occlusion therapy remained the mainstay treatments. Totally 19 and 13 keyword clusters were identified in the Chinese and English literatures, respectively. Burst analysis indicated that digital treatment such as binocular dichoptic training appeared relatively early in English literature. In recent years, quality of life and risk factor screening for amblyopia received increasing attention. In Chinese literature, growing focus was placed on digital visual training and traditional Chinese medicine intervention. In addition, neuroimaging evaluation based on resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging was conducted much earlier in English studies.
CONCLUSION:From 2015 to 2025, Chinese and English clinical research on amblyopia has shown diversified development, with substantial similarities in the major types of amblyopia investigated, visual function assessment, and basic treatment modalities, but differences in the timing and emphasis of some research hotspots. Clinical research on amblyopia is gradually expanding from improvement in visual acuity toward restoration of binocular visual function, multidimensional outcome assessment, and investigation of visual neural mechanisms, while treatment strategies are becoming increasingly digitalized and individualized. Future research should further optimize standardized treatment, strengthen investigations into adult amblyopia, binocular digital vision training, visual neural mechanisms, and multidimensional outcome assessment, and evaluate the clinical value of integrated traditional Chinese and Western medicine interventions through high-quality clinical studies.
