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Autorefractors may over diagnose myopia in children, study suggests
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Autorefractors may have a tendency to over diagnose myopia in school age children when measuring under non-cycloplegic conditions, a study suggests.
Yee-Fong Choong, FRCOphth, and colleagues in Kuala Lumpur, conducted the cross-sectional, community based study. The researchers obtained autorefractions from 117 children using three auto refractors and compared them with subjective refractions obtained both with and without cycloplegia.
The researchers found that two autorefractors produced significantly different non-cycloplegic mean spherical equivalents compared to the monocular subjective refraction. Without cycloplegia, the Retinomax K plus 2 measured a mean SE of –1.55 D (P < .0001) and the Canon RF10 measured a mean SE of –1.11 D (P = .0023), while the mean monocular subjective refraction was –0.8 D.
The Grand Seiko WR5100K also measured a mean SE of –0.79 D, significantly different from the binocular subjective refraction of –0.62 D (P = .0002), according to the study.
No significant difference in mean SE were noted between the refraction methods under cycloplegia, the authors noted.
The study was published in the American Journal of Ophthalmology.