Bifocal contact lenses are not just for older eyes. In nearsighted children as young as 7 years old, multifocal contact lenses with a heavy dose of added reading power can dramatically slow further progression of myopia, new research has found.
In the three-year clinical trial with nearly 300 children, a bifocal contact lens prescription with the highest correction at work was trusted near progression of density by 43 percent compared to single-vision contact lenses.
Although many adults in their 40s need time to adjust to their first multifocal contact lens prescription, children used the same commercially available soft contact lenses in the study, despite the strong correction. Multifocal lenses for nearsighted patients correct for clear vision at a distance and include an “addition” of focal power for near-work that challenges middle-aged eyes.
“Adults need multifocal contact lenses because they can no longer focus their eyes on reading,” said Jeffrey Walline, professor of optometry at Ohio State University and lead author of the study.
‘Children can still focus their eyes even though they are wearing multifocal contact lenses, so it’s like fitting them with normal contact lenses. They adapt much more easily than adults. ”
The study, known as BLINK (Bifocal Lenses In Nearsighted Kids), will be published today (August 11) in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
In nausea, such as myopia, the eye grows in an uncoordinated way into an elongated shape, for reasons that remain a mystery. Animal studies have led scientists to explore the potentials of contact lenses to monitor eye growth by using the reading portion of multifocal contact lenses to focus some light on the retina – the photosensitive layer of tissue that clogs the back of the eye – slowing the growth of the eye. each.
“These multifocal contact lenses move with the eyes and give more focus to the retina than glasses do,” said Walline, also associate dean of research at Ohio State’s College of Optometry. “And we want to slow down the growth of the eye, because nearsightness is caused by the eye growing too long.”
This research and other studies have led to advances in the treatment landscape for nearsighted children, Walline said. Options include multifocal contact lenses, contact lenses that reshape the cornea during sleep called orthokeratology, a specific type of eye drops called atropine, and special glasses.
Night vision is more than a nuisance. Myopia increases the risk of cataracts, loose retina, glaucoma and myopic maculopathy. All of these conditions can lead to loss of vision, even if you wear glasses or contact lenses. There are also factors of quality of life – less severe myopia improves the chances of successful laser surgery to correct vision and is not so off if no correction is worn, such as waking up in the morning.
Myopia is also common, affecting about one-third of adults in the United States, and is becoming more prevalent – as the scientific community believes, children now spend less time outdoors than in the past. Night vision begins between the ages of 8 and 10 and progresses to about 18 years.
Walline has been studying contact lens use in children for years and found that in addition to the benefits of vision, contact lenses also improve children’s self-control.
“The youngest nearsighted children I have studied were 7,” he said. “Not all 25-year-olds tolerate wearing contact lenses. About half of 7-year-olds can adapt to contact lenses, and almost all 8-year-olds can. “
In this trial, conducted at Ohio State and the University of Houston, nearsighted children aged 7-11 were randomized into one of three groups of contact lens wearers: single vision or multifocal prescriptions with a medium reading supplement of 1.50. diopters as a high add-on of 2.50 diopters. Diopters are a unit of measurement of the optical power required for visibility.
As a group, the mean attendance of the participants at the start of the study was -2.39 diopters. After three years, both the degree of progression of myopia and the extent of eye growth were lower in the children who wore the lenses with high supplementation. On average, the three-year eye growth in children with the bifocals with high attachment was 0.23 millimeters less than in children wearing lenses with one face. Medium-sized lenses do not slow down eye growth more than single-vision lenses.
The researchers were aware of the need to balance the reduction in eye growth with all the risks associated with educating children to strong reading skills long before they needed that level of correction. When testing their ability to read gray letters on a white background, there was a two-letter difference between values of single-vision lens and those wearing multifocal lenses.
“This was about finding a sweet spot,” Walline said. “And really, what we found was that even the power with high supplementation does not diminish their vision at all, and certainly not in a way that is clinically relevant.”
The research team stays with the same participants, treats them with the bifocal lenses with high addition for two years and then switches them all over to contact lenses with one face.
‘The question is: we have slowed the growth of the eye, but what happens if we take them out of treatment? Will they go back to where they were originally pre-programmed? The permanence of the treatment effect is what we will be investigating, “Walline said.
This study was funded by the National Eye Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health, and supported by Bausch + Lomb, which provided contact lens solutions.
Co-authors included Donald Mutti, Lisa Jones-Jordan, Loraine Sinnott, Katherine Bickle, Alex Nixon and Gilbert Pierce of Ohio State; and Maria Walker, Amber Gaume Giannoni, Krystal Schulle and David Berntsen of the University of Houston.
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