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Study shows nearly 10 million highly myopic adults in US
Researchers determined a population burden of approximately 9.6 million adults with high myopia, 817,829 adults with progressive high myopia and 41,111 adults with mCNV in the US for 2014.
While high myopia and progressive high (degenerative) myopia “impose a relatively large burden among adults in the U.S., myopic choroidal neovascularization seems to be a rare disease,” according to data analyzed from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey and the American Academy of Ophthalmology’s Intelligent Research in Sight Registry in Ophthalmology.
Researchers analyzed the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) data from 2005 to 2008 to assess the prevalence of high myopia in the U.S. and applied the data to estimates from the U.S. Population Census from 2014, to create a population burden of high myopia at the diopter level in the U.S.
Researchers estimated diopter-adjusted prevalence of high myopia as 3.92%, progressive high (degenerative) myopia as 0.33% and myopic choroidal neovascularization (mCNV) as 0.017%, among U.S. adults older than 18 years, according to the study.
“Relating data from the IRIS Registry and NHANES could be a novel method for assessing ophthalmic disease prevalence in the U.S.,” researchers said. – by Abigail Sutton
Disclosure: The researchers reported no relevant financial disclosures.