Is myopia control the next big thing?

There is no doubt that myopia control will become mainstream optometry in terms of managing young myopes in practice in the future, optometrist and director of the Centre for Ocular Research & Education (CORE), Professor Lyndon Jones, has told OT.

Professor Jones feels strongly that practitioners who do not currently feel equipped to offer myopia management still have an obligation to inform their patients.

“[They] have an obligation to say to the parent and the child, ‘these are the options available. I can’t do that, but I think you need to go and see someone who can,’” he highlighted

Speaking to OT, Professor Jones explained that all of the companies that CORE currently works with are looking at some form of myopia management.

Looking to the future, Professor Jones predicted that more myopia management options will become available.

“We are increasingly seeing more companies bringing out spectacle lens options,” he said, explaining: “At the moment, I think they are fairly limited, but we are seeing spectacle lenses that are claiming fairly similar 50–60% reduction in myopia progression. These are already available freely in Asia, particularly China and Hong Kong, but we don’t have them here.”

Referring to atropine, Professor Jones said: “We know that many, many studies have shown that low dose atropine is very effective at controlling myopia. At the moment we are a little limited in the UK in terms of options, but that is certainly going to increase as someone is very likely to bring out a commercially available low dose pharmaceutical.”