Myopia in teens

[caption id="attachment_5825" align="alignnone" width="500"] Seang-Mei Saw MD, PhD[/caption] New analyses of data collected in the Singapore Cohort Study of the Risk Factors for Myopia (SCORM) provide insight about the prevalence, incidence, and progression of myopia among teenagers in Singapore. Seang-Mei Saw MD, PhD presented the findings from the longitudinal epidemiologic study during the 2016 annual meeting of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO) in Seattle, USA. She reported that the prevalence of myopia (SE<-0.5D) and of high myopia (SE<-5.0D) among the Singapore teens aged 11-18 years was 69.1 per cent and 12.6 per cent, respectively. The myopia progression rate was slower among myopic teens than in children aged seven to nine years, -0.32D/year versus -0.95D, but among the teens it was faster in high myopes than in those with lower myopia. “The high prevalence of myopia and high myopia among the Singapore teens is worth noting because the final prevalence of myopia and of visually-disabling pathologic myopia will be even higher in adults. Moreover, although myopia progression slows down during the teenage years, it does not cease, and the teens who already have high myopia have a higher risk of developing extreme myopia and visually disabling complications,” said Prof Saw, SCORM Principal Investigator, Head, Myopia Unit, Singapore Eye Research Institute, and Professor, SSH School of Public Health, National University of Singapore. “We also think the age of cessation of myopia progression is likely later in young adulthood in Singapore. This information has clinical implications for determining when to start therapy and how long to continue it,” she said. SCORM is an 18-year cohort study implemented in 1999 that recruited 1,979 children aged seven to nine years at three schools. Participants initially underwent yearly comprehensive eye examinations that included cycloplegic autorefraction. The analyses of myopia in teens were based on data from 1,246 participants examined in 2006 and 1,037 participants examined in 2007. Prof Saw also reported that the total annual incidence rate of “adolescent-onset” myopia in the 11-18 year-olds was 17.6 per cent in males, 9.6 per cent in females, and 13.7 per cent overall, which was lower than the 21.6 per cent annual incidence rate found in SCORM among children aged seven to nine years. Consistent with other studies, myopia among Singaporean teens was more common among those of Chinese descent than in Indians and Malays. Seang-Mei Saw: seang_mei_saw@
nuhs.edu.sg

Tags: myopia