Low-level red-light therapy controls myopia progression in children
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
Key takeaways:
- Children treated with low-level red-light therapy experienced significant effects on spherical equivalent, axial length and subfoveal choroidal thickness.
- No significant differences were reported between powers.
Low-level red-light therapy at varied powers effectively controlled and reduced myopia progression in children, according to a study published in Ophthalmology.
“Red light, a short wavelength visible light of 600 nm to 700 nm, has been used to treat various diseases, such as promoting cell synthesis, wound healing, hair growth, fracture healing and regeneration of damaged nerves,” Wen Zhou, MM, from The First People’s Hospital of Xuzhou, and colleagues wrote. “Recent studies have found that low-level red-light exposure induces hyperopia and slows myopia progression.”
With limited data on the effectiveness of different powers of low-level red-light (LRL), researchers conducted a single-blind, randomized controlled trial to evaluate LRL efficacy at 0.37 mW, 0.06 mW and 1.2 mW.
They enrolled 200 children aged 6 to 15 years with myopia and astigmatism less than –2.5 D, who were divided into three intervention groups and one control group. All groups wore single-vision glasses throughout the day, and the intervention groups were randomly assigned to LRL therapy at 0.37 mW, 0.6 mW or 1.2 mW twice per day for 3 minutes each session.
The researchers reported that after 6 months the intervention groups experienced significantly lower progression of spherical equivalent (SE) compared with the control group (0.01 D, –0.05 D and 0.16 D, respectively, vs. –0.22 D). In addition, changes in axial length (AL) were significantly smaller in the intervention groups (0.04 mm, 0 mm and –0.04 mm vs. 0.27 mm) and increases in subfoveal choroidal thickness (SFCT) were greater (22.63 µm, 36.17 µm and 42.59 µm vs. –5.07 µm). However, differences in SE, AL or SFCT were not significant between intervention groups.
“LRL effectively controlled myopia progression at 0.37 mW, 0.60 mW and 1.20 mW,” Zhou and colleagues wrote. “Despite no significant power differences, a trend indicates higher power’s potential effectiveness.”
Collapse
Read more about
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts