The year 2020 is a notable and much anticipated year in the eyecare calendar worldwide. As eyecare practitioners (ECPs) entered 2020 ready to improve the vision and the lives of patients for another year, their biggest call to action was to ensure that they are not myopic about myopia management. Let’s count down the top myopia events over the last year that have set the stage for 2020.

The Top Five Myopia Events Over the Last Year

5) Availability of Professional Education Along with increasing podium time at continuing education events dedicated to myopia topics, more education has emerged to support ECPs on demand and at their own pace. Examples include this new Myopia Matters monthly column, websites dedicated to myopia management, and special issues of professional and research journals. The latter includes last month’s Myopia Management issue and the “Bringing Myopia Management into Focus” 2019 Special Edition of Contact Lens Spectrum; also, the January 2020 “Myopia Control with Contact Lenses” special issue of Contact Lens and Anterior Eye includes the latest on orthokeratology, soft multifocal lenses, optics of myopia control, international prescribing patterns (Efron et al, 2020), and a comparison of the lifelong risks of microbial keratitis in lens wear with the lifelong risk of pathology due to higher myopia (Gifford, 2020).

Several companies and organizations now offer courses online and on demand. As an example, ECPs can start their learning journey at any time with Myopia Profile’s free course “Myopia Management in Practice” (https://academy.myopiaprofile.com/collections ). The accessibility of this and other courses reflects the timely need for ECPs to embrace myopia management as the standard of practice moves in this direction.

4) An Explosion of New Soft Contact Lens Designs Soft multifocal designs for managing myopia, including daily disposables, have been launched in various markets globally over the last year. The options and accessibility for myopia-specific soft lens designs have expanded as research and product development come to fruition.

3) The Latest Research Illuminates the Options A three-year, randomized controlled study showed more than 50% efficacy for both refractive and axial length control with the MiSight (CooperVision) lens (Chamberlain et al, 2019). An extended-depth-of-focus lens showed around 30% efficacy in a two-year randomized clinical trial (Sankaridurg et al, 2019). Every diopter matters in myopia control, with Brennan and Bullimore (2019) showing that every reduced diopter of myopia means 40% less lifelong risk of myopic maculopathy. Research this year will provide even greater clarity on myopia control efficacy and evidence-based comparison of contact lens designs.

2) The International Myopia Institute White Paper Reports These landmark peer-consensus reports (iovs.arvojournals.org ) cover the research landscape on myopia definitions and pathology, interventions, genetics, experimental models, clinical trial standards, ethics, and clinical management guidelines.

1) U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Approval of a Contact Lens for Myopia Control In November 2019, the FDA approved a contact lens for myopia control, indicated for children aged 8 to 12 years at the time of lens wear commencement. In my opinion, this event gains top billing as the landmark moment when myopia management moved from the domain of the early adopters and the cutting-edge researchers to mainstream clinical practice.

Get Going

ECPs can no longer afford to be myopic about the lifetime eye health risks of progressive myopia. We must instead take the long-term view and embrace our ability to actively manage it. CLS

For references, please visit www.clspectrum.com/references and click on document #293.