VIDEO: Recent research, areas of future study in myopia

Editor’s note: This is an automatically generated transcript, which has been slightly edited for clarity. Please notify editor@healio.com if there are concerns regarding accuracy of the transcription.

I'll declare my conflict of interest: I’m a consultant for Vyluma Inc., and I am the principal investigator of their recently completed Childhood Atropine for Myopia Progression (CHAMP) study. And that is a randomized clinical trial of almost 600 children of 0.01% and 0.02% atropine compared to placebo. It is the first 3-year, placebo-controlled study in a U.S. and European sample.

So that’s kind of hot off the press as we were just published in JAMA Ophthalmology in June. There have been more studies done in Asia, and I think right now the task for practitioners is paying attention to and sorting out all that literature.

And I really encourage my optometry students, as well as practitioners, optometry and ophthalmology alike, read the primary literature, interpret it for yourself, right? Don’t just let it be that a speaker like me gets up and flashes a slide and you think, ‘Oh, OK, well, that works. I know, I’m going to go do that.’

I think really disciplining ourselves to read the original literature that’s available right now is really important. Will we see more low-dose atropine studies? Could we see more different formulations of a different antimuscarinic? I think those are the things we’ll see, you know, on the far horizon right now. On the near horizon, I think people would probably like it if they didn’t have to use compounding pharmacies for their low-dose atropine.

So you know, we all sort of have our fingers crossed for FDA approval of pharmaceutical treatment, just like we already have FDA approval of the multifocal contact lens option.