Dr. Mihir Trilok Kothari, K08617, Dr. Khushboo Shikhangi, Dr. Renu Singhania, Dr. Kruti Shah
Study was done to decide whether we should advocate early (OFFICE) probing (at 6 months) or massage till 1 year and then advice (CONVENTIONAL) probing, if the symptoms persist. Methods: Clinical outcomes of CONVENTIONAL probing from rural and urban centres were compared with OFFICE probing. Two decision trees were constructed. The potential outcomes for CONVENTIONAL probing versus an OFFICE probing were assigned appropriate pay offs. The outcome probability and rank were multiplied to calculate final weightage for each outcome. The total score for each decision was calculated. The actions that lead to a higher score were considered the winning decision. Results: The decision score for 298 eyes of 240 children from rural India with CONVENTIONAL probing was 0.63 and that for 56 eyes of 46 children from urban India, was 0.72. For 384 eyes of 304 children with OFFICE probing the decision score was 0.82. Conclusion: OFFICE (at 6 month) probing was better than CONVENTIONAL (at 1 yr) probing