Contact Lens Therapy Effective in Slowing Myopia Progression

Highlights

• Myopia in children can lead to glaucoma, cataract, retinal detachment and myopic maculopathy if not treated.
• Dual-focus contact lens was effective in slowing myopia progression.
• The lens was well accepted by children and did not affect their daily activities such as school work, reading, playing outside, and computer use.

Myopia or near sightedness among children is growing and a groundbreaking contact lens therapy has potential to impact the issue, based on research presented at the American Academy of Optometry's 95th Annual Meeting. The prevalence of myopia is projected to increase from approximately 2 billion people worldwide in 2010 to almost 5 billion people in 2050. "Myopia's prevalence has exploded in the past several decades, moving from affecting low double-digit percentages of the general population to now compromising vision for the vast majority of young adults in some countries, especially in East Asia," said Arthur Back, Chief Technology Officer for CooperVision.

The prospective, multi-center, double-masked, randomized multi-year study enrolled 144 myopic children aged 8-12 years from Singapore, Canada, England, and Portugal. Three-year data is anticipated in 2017.

Calif, CooperVision Senior Manager of Clinical Research Paul Chamberlain shared two-year interim results from a clinical trial assessing a specially-designed, dual-focus myopia control 1-day soft contact lens in reducing the rate of progression of juvenile-onset myopia.

Initiating treatment for myopia in childhood represents a meaningful commitment by parents in the near- and long-term health and well-being of their children. The CooperVision dual-focus 1-day lens used in this study provides a new approach that's proving effective at 24 months.

Parents of study participants also had a very positive response, noting their children could mostly manage their lens wear independently. Prior to dispensing contact lenses, less than half of the parents were extremely at ease with their child wearing contact lenses, but this increased significantly to 79% after just one month and remained high through the two-year mark. Parents reported minimal involvement and assistance with lens handling after one month of contact lens wear by their children.Throughout the study, 8 out of 10 parents rated their children 'extremely happy' with the overall experience.

For lens removal, minimal parental assistance was required throughout the trial (4% of parents providing more than one assist in the first week and none at 24 months). Reminders by parents to insert or remove lenses were infrequent. At 24 months, 82% of parents rated their children 'extremely happy' with overall experience of the dual-focus contact lens.

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There was no difference in wearing time during the week and during the day between children wearing the dual-focus 1-day lens and a single vision 1-day contact lens. Quality of vision reported by the children was similar between the control and the test groups.

Ocular comfort during contact lens wear in both groups was excellent, with 95% of children in the control group and 98% of children in the test group reporting that they could never or sometimes feel their contact lenses. When test and control subjects were asked how they liked wearing their type of vision correction, 78% and 80% of children respectively rated contact lenses the best.

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Reference

1. Calif, New study shows contact lens therapy effective in slowing myopia progression in children, 95th American Academy of Optometry's Annual Meeting (2016).

Source-Medindia