Top stories of 2023 highlight advancements in eye wear

Developments in spectacle lenses over the past year have revealed their efficacy beyond vision correction.

Research shows certain designs to be effective for myopia control and migraine symptom management, but doubt has been cast on the utility of blue light-filtering lenses for reducing eye strain.

Read on for the eye wear news highlights from 2023.

Essilor Stellest spectacle lenses slow myopia, axial length progression in children

EssilorLuxottica’s Essilor Stellest lenses slowed myopia progression and axial length increase in children in a 4-year clinical trial, according to data presented at the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology meeting.

Children who wore spectacles with highly aspherical lenslets (HAL) saved more than 1.25 D of myopia over 4 years in the trial, which began in 2018 at the Eye Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University in China, according to a company press release. HAL lenses served as the optical design inspiration for the Essilor Stellest lenses. Read more.

SightGlass Vision reports successful myopia control in children using DOT spectacle lenses

SightGlass Vision has announced positive results from its 4-year CYPRESS study, which tested myopia control performance of the company’s Diffusion Optics Technology spectacle lenses.

According to a company press release, the DOT 0.2 lenses use thousands of light-scattering elements called dots, which are designed to mimic more natural contrast on the retina and slow myopia progression in children. Read more.

Novel spectacle lens effectively reduces myopia progression in children

The novel Shamir Myopia Control spectacles slowed progression of axial length and spherical equivalent refraction in children, especially those younger than 10 years, compared with single-vision spectacle lenses, according to research.

“The goal of our study is to evaluate these newly designed spectacle lenses produced by Shamir and compare their effect with [single-vision spectacle lenses] in slowing down the progression of myopia and axial elongation, as well as in visual comfort and compliance in children,” researchers in Israel wrote in the American Journal of Ophthalmology. Read more.

New spectacle lenses block light wavelengths linked to migraines

Avulux announced the U.S. availability of its new spectacle lens designed to block the majority of the light spectrum that has been shown to be harmful to migraine sufferers.

More than 80% of people who suffer from migraine experience light sensitivity, with light triggering or worsening their attacks, according to company literature. The Avulux Migraine & Light Sensitivity Lens blocks up to 97% of harmful blue, amber and red light while allowing more than 70% of soothing green light to pass through. Read more.

Blue-light filtering lenses may not help with short-term eye strain

Blue-light filtering spectacle lenses were not superior to non-filtering lenses in reducing visual fatigue associated with computer use, according to a review published in Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews.

“This systematic review found that blue-light filtering spectacle lenses may not attenuate symptoms of eye strain with computer use, over a short-term follow-up period, compared to non-blue-light filtering lenses,” Sumeer Singh, PhD, postdoctoral clinical research fellow at the University of Melbourne, and colleagues wrote. “Further, this review found no clinically meaningful difference in changes to critical flicker-fusion frequency with blue-light filtering lenses compared to non-blue-light filtering lenses.” Read more.