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Risk score may help identify schoolchildren at high risk for myopia
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A newly developed risk score that combines environmental and ocular factors may help identify schoolchildren who are at high risk for myopia.
A population-based prospective study included 4,734 children who underwent ocular biometry measurements at 6 and 9 years of age; 2,175 children had complete ocular biometry data at 9 years of age, but 39 children were excluded due to a diagnosis of myopia at 6 years of age, leaving 2,136 children in the prediction analyses.
Myopia developed in 223 children between the 6-year visit and the 9-year visit. Average axial length elongation was 0.21 mm per year. Parental myopia, one or more books read per week, time spent reading, no participation in sports, non-European ethnicity, less time spent outdoors and baseline axial length-to-corneal radius were associated independently with faster axial length elongation. Based on these risk factors, the discriminative accuracy for incidence of myopia was 0.78, according to the study.
The risk factor with the highest predictive value for onset of myopia was axial length elongation, with an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of 0.85.
“The risk score developed by this study helps to identify schoolchildren at high risk of myopia,” the study authors said. “Future applications in schoolchildren may initiate behavioral changes and other interventions that delay myopia onset and reduce the risk of high myopia.” – by Robert Linnehan
Disclosures: The authors report no relevant financial disclosures.
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Tideman JWL, et al. Ophthalmology. 2018;doi:10.1016/j.ophtha.2018.06.029.
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