If you have a child who is nearsighted, or has trouble seeing things that are far away, then you might be interested in a new study that was just published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The study was funded by the National Eye Institute, which is part of the National Institutes of Health, and it involved children wearing special contact lenses called multifocal contact lenses.
The results showed that children who wore these lenses had a slower progression of their nearsightedness, which is also called myopia. This is important because nearsightedness can increase the risk of other eye problems later in life, such as cataracts, glaucoma, and retinal detachment. So, if you’re a parent and your child is nearsighted, talk to your eye doctor about whether these special contact lenses could be a good option to help control the progression of their nearsightedness.
The lead researcher of the Bifocal Lenses In Nearsighted Kids (BLINK) Study, Jeffrey J. Walline, O.D., Ph.D., who is also the associate dean for research at the Ohio State University College of Optometry, said that the results of the study are especially good news for parents whose children are nearsighted. The study showed that children as young as 7 years old were able to achieve good visual acuity and get used to wearing multifocal contact lenses, which are special lenses that help control the progression of nearsightedness. Dr. Walline also added that it is safe to fit younger children with contact lenses, and that it is a common practice. So, if you’re a parent and your child is nearsighted, talk to your eye doctor about whether these special contact lenses could be a good option to help control the progression of their nearsightedness.
Myopia, also know as nearsightedness, is a refractive error that occurs when a child’s eyes grow too long from front to back. This causes the light that enters the eye to focus in front of the retina, which is the light-sensitive tissue at the back of the eye. As a result, people with myopia have good near vision but poor distance vision. Myopia is a common condition and typically becomes apparent in childhood or adolescence. It is often first detected during a routine eye exam and can be corrected with glasses, contact lenses or surgery. If you have a child who is nearsighted, it’s important to have their eyes checked regularly to monitor the progression of the condition and to determine the best way to correct it.
Glasses and standard contact lenses can compensate for nearsightedness, but they don’t treat the root problem. Special contacts can help with near vision and also slow down the growth of the eyes, which can help to stop myopia from getting worse.
Multifocal contacts are designed like a bullseye and have two parts that help with vision. The center part of the lens makes distance vision clear, and it focuses light directly on the retina. The outer part of the lens adds power to focus light from the side, and it helps to slow down eye growth by bringing the light rays into focus in front of the retina. Studies with animals have shown that this helps to cue the eye to slow down growth. The more power added, the further in front of the retina the peripheral light will be focused.
On the other hand, single vision glasses and regular contacts focus peripheral light to a point behind the retina, which makes the eye work harder and keep growing.
The scientists looked at if contact lenses with more power helped to slow down myopia progression and eye growth more than lenses with less power. They found that the high-power lenses were the only ones that slowed down the growth of the eyes in a significant way.
There are other ways to slow down myopia besides multifocal contact lenses. These include wearing orthokeratology lenses overnight to reshape the cornea, or using low-dose atropine eye drops at bedtime. A special contact lens was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration in 2019 for myopia control, but doctors have been using multifocal lenses off-label to slow down myopia progression for a long time.
In the last 50 years, myopia has become more common. In 1971, 25% of Americans were myopic, compared to 33% in 2004. By 2050, it’s expected that 54% of people worldwide will be myopic, and the number of people with high myopia (needing correction of -5.00 diopters or more) will increase to 10%.
The reason for the increase in myopia is not known, but it is believed that near work, such as screen time, and reduced time spent outside during early eye development may be contributing factors. Genetics also play a role in a person’s likelihood of becoming myopic. There is no test to determine which individuals with myopia will develop high myopia, but it’s more likely to happen if a child is affected at a younger age and no intervention is done to slow the progression of myopia.
Researchers worked with 287 kids between the ages of 7 and 11 who needed glasses with a strength between -0.75 and -5.00 diopters to see clearly at a distance. The kids were randomly assigned to wear either single vision or multifocal contact lenses. The multifocal lenses had either a high-add power (+2.50 diopters) or medium-add power (+1.50 diopters) and were worn as much as the kids could comfortably during the day. All participants were seen at clinics at Ohio State University in Columbus or University of Houston.
After wearing contact lenses for three years, kids who wore the ones with the highest add power (+2.50 diopters) had the least amount of myopia progression, meaning their eyes didn’t get worse as much as the other groups. The kids who wore the lenses with a medium add power (+1.50 diopters) had the most amount of myopia progression. The kids who wore single vision lenses had the second highest amount of myopia progression. The lenses also slowed down the growth of the kids’ eyes, with the high add group having the least amount of eye growth, the medium add group having more, and the single vision group having the most.
The study found that kids who wore contact lenses with a high add power had the least amount of myopia progression and eye growth. This means they were less likely to have eye problems that could lead to vision loss. The researchers say that eye doctors should recommend these lenses to kids to help control myopia and slow down the growth of their eyes. The study also showed that wearing multifocal lenses instead of single vision lenses can slow down the progression of myopia by 43% over three years.
The study showed that wearing multifocal contact lenses can help slow down the progression of myopia in children. However, the researchers want to know if this benefit continues even after the kids stop wearing the lenses. They will be doing more research to find out if the lenses have a long-term effect on myopia progression. The follow-up study will be looking at the kids who took part in the original study to see if they continue to have slowed myopia progression even when they are not wearing the lenses anymore.
The researchers want to learn more about how the multifocal contact lenses work to slow down the growth of the children’s eyes. They want to understand the specific visual signals that are involved in this process so that they can make the treatment even more effective. This means they can find ways to improve the lenses or use other methods to achieve the same result. They hope that by understanding the process better, they can create even stronger treatment effects in the future.