Professor Kazuo Tsubota, Professor Kazuno Negishi, Project Associate Professor Toshihide Kurihara, and Assistant Professor Hidemasa Torii of Keio University School of Medicine’s Department of Ophthalmology have discovered that violet light (VL) may suppress myopia progression (axial length elongation) in adult high myopia.
High myopia is the fourth most common cause of blindness (first-grade visual impairment) in Japan, according to a 2005 research report by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, and is known for a very high risk of causing blindness. However, there is currently no effective way to suppress axial length elongation in adults with high myopia, which is effective in reducing myopia progression.
This research group has previously reported on the possibility that VL can be effective for suppressing ocular axial length elongation in young people aged 13 to 18 years old. Further research has found that VL may also suppress ocular axial length elongation in adults with high myopia.
This time, The research group performed phakic intraocular lens (pIOL) implantation, a refractive surgery, on patients with adult high myopia and compared myopia progression between two groups implanted with different lenses for a 5-year period following surgery. The results show a significant difference between the axial length elongation between the two groups in the 5 years following surgery. This research group compared the differences between the two lenses against a variety of criteria including higher-order aberration, residual astigmatism, spectral transmittance of the pIOL, and off-axis aberration simulation using eye models. This research group found that there were no significant differences other than the spectral transmittance of the pIOL, suggesting the possibility that the difference in VL transmittance may have produced the differences seen in the current results.
Based on the results of this research, it is expected that VL can be used to suppress axial length elongation and myopia progression not only in young people, but also adults with high myopia, and will play a role in preventing blindness.
Findings were published in the November 2017 issue of open access journal Scientific Reports.
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Violet Light May Also Suppress Progression of Adult High Myopia A possible step toward preventing sight-threatening myopia?