Near retinoscopy in accommodative esotropia

We tested whether near retinoscopy, a noncycloplegic retinoscopic technique, was applicable to the optic correction of patients with accommodative esodeviations. We performed a study in 17 patients with accommodative esotropia to compare the refractive values obtained by near retinoscopy and by cycloplegia, as measured by two examiners. The interobserver variability was the same for the two techniques for the refractive values of the horizontal and vertical meridia and spherical equivalent. For the astigmatism, there was greater variability for near retinoscopy. The correlation between the two methods was good, but the variability of the differences was high. We recommend that near retinoscopy should be employed only as a noninvasive method for screening refractive errors in children.