The most likely effective treatment to slow myopia progression thus far is anti-muscarinic topical medication. However, side effects of these medications include light sensitivity and near blur. Also, they are not yet commercially available, so their use is limited and not practical. Further information is required for other methods of myopia control, such as the use of corneal reshaping contact lenses or bifocal soft contact lenses (BSCLs) with a distance center are promising, but currently no published randomized clinical trials exist.
Effect of spectacle use and accommodation on myopic progression: final results of a three-year randomised clinical trial among schoolchildren.
Two hundred and forty mildly myopic schoolchildren aged 9-11 years were randomly allocated to three treatment groups and the progression of myopia was followed-up for three years. The treatment groups were: (1) minus lenses with full correction for continuous use (the reference group), (2) minus lenses with full correction to be used for distant vision only, and (3) bifocal lenses with +1.75 D addition. Three-year refraction values were received from 237 children. The differences in the increases of the spherical equivalents were not statistically significant in the right eye, but in the left eye the change in the distant use group was significantly higher (-1.87 D) than in the continuous use group (-1.46 D) (p = 0.02, Student's t test). There were no differences between the groups in regard to school achievement, accidents, or satisfaction with glasses. In all three groups the more the daily close work done by the children the faster was the rate of myopic progression (right eye: r = 0.253, p = 0.0001, left eye: r = 0.267, p = 0.0001). Myopic progression did not correlate positively with accommodation, but the shorter the average reading distance of the follow-up time the faster was the myopic progression (right eye: r = 0.222, p = 0.0001, left eye: r = 0.255, p = 0.001). It seems that myopic progression is connected with much use of the eyes in reading and close work and with short reading distance but that progression cannot be reduced by diminishing accommodation with bifocals or by reading without spectacles.