Devices for keeping the superior retina emmetropic in children might be a myopia control strategy. Photo: Getty Images. Click image to enlarge.

A relative peripheral hyperopia has been suggested as a myopia trigger in children. To better validate this finding, researchers measured high-resolution two-dimensional peripheral refraction maps during two years of myopia progression in a group of Chinese children. The team determined that relative refraction in the superior retina can be used as a predictor of central myopia. These findings were presented last week at the 2022 ARVO meeting in Denver.

After the study concluded, 214 children’s data (ages nine to 16) were available after one year and 152 children’s data were available after two. The peripheral refraction maps covered a field from nasal 30° to temporal 30° of every 1° and from superior 20° to inferior 16° of every 4°. The participants were classified into three refraction progression groups based on their refractive change in hyperopia, emmetropia and myopia. The researchers used an ANOVA test to compare the difference in baseline peripheral defocus pattern between each group.

After the first year, a refraction pattern significantly different from baseline was found in emmetropes. Baseline peripheral defocus in the central vertical field (horizontally, within ±15°) was found to be significantly correlated with central myopic shift, especially in the superior retina.

Linear regression revealed that emmetropic subjects with more myopic defocus in the superior retina had more myopic progression. The researchers found no obvious difference in baseline refraction pattern in the hyperopes and myopes. The same outcome was confirmed after the two-year period.

“This type of relative refraction in the superior retina could be used as a predictor of central myopia,” the team concluded in their abstract. “In relation, devices for keeping the superior retina emmetropic in children might be a myopia control strategy.”

Original abstract content © Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology 2022.

Lin Z, Lan W, Wen L, et al. Two-years evolution of two-dimensional peripheral refraction in children. ARVO 2022 annual meeting.